“Heard you might have a Fathom Mermaid Edition left? Potential interest here …” was my message on June 1st, 2021. I had just sent it to Zach at Flip N Out Pinball after seeing the release information on the new Haggis Fathom Mermaid Edition out of Australia. By the next day, Zach let me know that I had a slot reserved and I didn’t need to do anything more to ensure I got a game. Zach is a man of his word, so I never gave it another thought – when the game was ready, he would let me know. No one could have predicted what was about to happen in Australia (and around the world). The COVID related shut downs, parts shortages and supply chain breakdowns all contributed to a sizeable delay for Haggis in the manufacture and delivery of this game.

What’s A Fathom?

Fathom is a 1981 Bally pinball machine that is beloved by those that know pinball. Especially those that know this era. Like any other time in pinball history, some games were killer and others were duds. Fathom was on the homicidal side. Killer in every sense of the word. Heck, Mermaids are the theme but if you were expecting the “nice ones”, think again. They are trying to accomplish one thing – kill you.

The game is fast, brutal at times, simple to understand but challenging to master. More than just myself view it as the most beautiful artwork to ever grace a pinball machine (nice work Greg Freres). The machine was the first to come with it’s own comic book storyline. While the original working title was “Deep Threat”, the Bally management team landed on “Fathom” in the end.

• Original Designer (1981): Ward Pemberton
• Original Artwork (1981): Greg Freres
• Original Production (1981): 3,500 units

Ward Pemberton (the original Fathom game designer) was interviewed in 2008 on the TOPcast Show (episode #56). When asked how he thought the original Fathom sold in the market said, “There wasn’t many games doing much more at that time”. He also went on to share that it was a positively reviewed game, by none other than Roger Sharpe (Roger giving it his thumbs up). Wards pinball origin story starts with his dad. Wards father worked at Bally for over 26 years and once Ward graduated high school, he got an opportunity to join Bally in 1978-79. He spent a few years toiling away before Norm Clark gave him a chance to design a game. Fathom was his FIRST game.

Fathom Mermaid Edition

It wasn’t until nearly a year and a half later, on November 29th 2022 that I received a text from Zach. My Fathom was on a plane and on it’s way to the Cincinnati airport! Zach had to arrange to pick it up, then bring it back to his warehouse first. I had already planned to drive from TN to Evansville to pick it up during the upcoming Christmas break. In between all this Zach had some back issues and was laid up in a hospital bed – it was serious enough that he was unsure if he and Nicole would even make it home for Christmas. Thankfully he healed enough to be released and enjoy Christmas with his family. I really did not expect to see my Fathom until sometime in January – and that was just fine with me. Surprise! I got a message from Zach just a few days after Christmas that Fathom had landed at his warehouse and I could pick it up anytime.

I checked with my son-in-law Chris to see if he was available to ride along on the 4 1/2 hour trip (each way) on a day in the coming week. He said he was and we planned to drive up to Evansville on Wednesday as it appeared to be a sunny day both in TN and Evansville Indiana. Good weather makes the drive and the haul easier all the way around. We had just experienced some of the coldest weather we have seen in East TN since moving here almost 28 years ago and the forecast for our travel day seemed downright tropical (45 degrees!) vs what we had just gone through.

I met Chris at the old ranch house at 5:45 am with hot coffee and a cooler full of water and drinks for the road. We made excellent time – in fact too excellent! I forgot to account for the 1 hour time change as we left EST and moved to CST, so I texted Zach and let him know we would be an hour early. We arrived around 9:30 and were unexpectedly greeted by the dynamic duo themselves – Zach and Greg! The “pinball stars” of SDTM fame were there to say hello and Greg was present to provide the muscle to load the game (recall that Zach was in no shape to lift anything). I had never met Greg in person and he was just as kind and easy going as he appears on camera. Though standing side by side with him and Zach made me feel like a toddler – gosh those two guys are tall.

Zach gave me a choice of several game numbers but it was just as easy to take the “game on the end” (Game #215) than any of the others, so that’s what I did. After we tipped the game into the bed of my pickup, Zach was kind enough to give us a tour of his super nice Pinball Gameroom. The games are absolutely stunning. Even the older classics look as if they just came off the factory line (or better). We shot the breeze for a bit on the topic of pinball and after a few handshakes and goodbyes, we were back on the road again headed home.

Count On Zach

As we drove away, I thought about how Zach runs his business and how it’s different than others and why those differences are better. Here’s the bottom line – he trusts people and he is trustworthy. Yes, there is risk in that but he takes those risks and sees value in the outcomes. Our “deal” on Fathom was a few emails only. No deposit. No upfront payment of any kind. Zach took all the risk up front. He protects his customers. On the customer side, he is a trustworthy person. That means an email reserved my Fathom spot at the market price and I was confident in that. When I asked him if I could send a deposit, he declined and said he had a spot saved for me. When the game arrived, he did not try to sell it to someone else. He didn’t tack on a upcharge (though the game could easily have justified it) No. Instead, he actually helped me save almost $1,000 by allowing a direct pickup and a payment method that saved him a few dollars as well. So on the promise of an email I secured and took delivery of a very hard to find game. That’s why Zach is my go to guy for my game needs AND for all the folks that I’ve sent his way. I trust him. You can too.

Unboxing

It’s hard to unbox this game without noticing that you are unpacking something special indeed. I could not help but take photographs along the way. Again and again I was seeing new and thoughtful features added to a game originally released in August 1981. The lock for the back box is in a place you can REACH! It’s positioned to the lower left of the head so the vertically challenged don’t need a stool anymore.

The backbox locks to the cabinet with turnbuckles. Simply raise the head to playing position and turn the “T” handle about a half turn and you’re done! No more scratching up your floor with those Williams style clips. No more trying to line up the large head bolts of the Bally days. Simple. Thoughtful. Useful.

Moving on to the packaging. I know, right? The packaging. It was phenomenal. Clear blue tape to protect the artwork in key areas. That same blue tape was across the entire coin door and the playfield glass as well. There was foam padding and cardboard “blocks” wherever the outer carton could conceivably be crushed in transit. See the image of the front of the coin door to see how protected the machine was.

Even the cabinet corners came with temporary plastic corners to protect them from crushing or dings in transit. When we popped off the lock down bar, there were 2 strategically placed cork pads underneath it to prevent any denting or movement during travel. Quite a bit of thought went into ensuring that I got my game in one piece.

The goody bag was a nice Haggis logo bag taped onto the front of the machine under the plastic wrapping. There was a BUNCH of stuff in there so I’ll list it out:

• Haggis baseball cap
• Haggis Koozie
• Haggis car decals (2)
• Haggis key chain
• Fathom art cards (3 wrinkled)
• Rubber floor protectors (4)
• Balls (4)
• Feet (4)
• Leg bolts (8)
• Leg bolt washer/protectors black (8)
• Goodie bag: extra decals/plastics
• Plumb bob
• Key sets
• Power cable

Also included and carefully packed in a shipping tube was a custom poster with my game number on it and signed by the entire Haggis team – very nice. The poster is in the process of being framed

Mind Blown First Impressions

When we got the game set up, I flicked the power switch and the game came alive and as it launched into attract mode, I reflexively said – Holy Sh&t!

Followed by:

• Holy cow!
• Oh my gosh!
• Wow, just WOW!

The hair stood up on my arms and for a few seconds as I stood there literally speechless.

Listen, I’m not a fan of cussing. To be fair, I’m really good at it, but I try not to practice it. In the moment, the expletive was just uncontrollable. Turning this game on and experiencing the sound and light show for the very first time was simply astounding. Very few games sound as good (save for TNA) or look as good as far as the light show (save for GnR). The sound is visceral and at first I was convinced there was a shaker motor installed. The light show is in a word – startling. I say that because when I set the game up I put it next to my fully restored Harlem Globetrotters. I have a pretty good idea of the light show in Harlem (non-existent right?) so to see a VERY similar era game right beside it literally BLAST to life was unreal. The visual and sonic experience was obviously without compare to Harlem (or any game of that era) and in my opinion in many ways it easily exceeds many modern games. OK, Fathom, you got my attention. Seriously – I couldn’t stop looking at it.

First Game Impressions

OK, I wrote this part first to “get it out of the way”. Listen, I love this game. It’s challenging, beautiful, rare, loud, fun, interesting and a whole host of other superlatives BUT … my first day of ownership was a struggle. The game was not playable out of the box. Here is what went wrong:

• The right flippers had intermittent power or in the case of the upper flipper, at times did not work
• The manual ball launch could not put the ball in play (went about 3/4 up shooter lane at best)
• The right side (outer green) lane would never return the ball to the flippers – an automatic drain

The first issue (the flippers) meant the game simply couldn’t be played. The second problem related to the manual ball launch would still allow me to play a game but you had to wait for the game logic to kick in and auto-launch the ball. This took about 4x as long as a simple/manual plunge and essentially killed the vibe. The last issue concerning the right side outer lane draining was simply an annoyance as I now had TWO drains on the right vs one (proper) on the left.

Here’s my take on this. For me, this was frustrating but I’ve bought enough NIB games to know ALL manufacturers suffer from this to some degree. I’m also a expert mechanical tech. If the problem is mechanics or engineering, I got it. I’m also more than passable on electronics. So when I have problems with new games – well, I just fix them. I had all 3 of these sorted within 24 hours. I posted my solutions to Pinside so it might help others as well. So for ME – hey, it was no big deal. For folks that are new to the hobby OR rely on a tech of their own to help them out … well that’s a horse of a different color. When the game issues rise to the level that they make it unplayable, then that’s when said manufacturer will have a problem. To be fair, Haggis is new at this, I’m confident they will improve. If they bring the same passion that created this wonderful machine to the QC process – they’ll sort it out I’m sure.

As I mentioned all 3 of my issues were corrected (by me) within 24 hours. See the end of this post for details on the “fixes” should you run into the same issues.

I had some other minor issues as listed below:

• Lower one way wire gates are pulling out of their frames (gate wire is too short in the frame)
• A few stuck balls (recurring on left edge of top/left pop bumper, forces pulling the glass)
• Glass has a permanent “wear mark” (right side of spinner gate rubbed in transit). Even though there is clearance from the spinner frame to the glass, when the game is on its end, the PF is so heavy that in transit, it pulls toward the glass and the spinner frame rubs until it has created a permanent mark.
• There must be some oil residue remaining in the ball trough as I just about panicked when I saw the below image. It looked like playfield scratches but turned out to be ball trails of oil or some substance. They have lessened with 50+ plays but still appear. Good news? They wipe right off with a cotton cloth

In Love With A Mermaid

You know, this game has a thousand reasons to love it and almost none in the negative column. Yes the code has a few bugs but the Haggis team is diligently working to improve it (my game came with 0.76 installed), but aside from that and some “normal boutique pinball tweaking upon arrival”, it’s one heck of a game. It’s a special game and that specialness is reflected in the dozens of “extras” I keep finding as I play it. Who does this? Who invests in over the top features? Haggis – that’s who. Let me introduce you to an extremely passionate group. I know this not because I’ve met them, but because I own a copy of a game that reflects that passion:

• CEO: Damian Hartin
• Game Developer: Greg Sealby
• Creative Director: Scott Seedsman
• Musical Director: Casey Dean
• Mechanical Engineer: Lachlan Dowd
• Game Designer (2.0 Rules): Martin Robbins
• Price: $8,900 USD + shipping

Passion Looks Like

People who really care about what they are doing end up building, creating, designing or sharing some of the most wonderful things on earth. This Fathom Mermaid Edition is no exception. What follows is a long list of special features, small design improvements and overall thoughtfulness that can only come from the minds and hands of people who care deeply:

• Score display changes color (to red) when under Mermaid attack
• The backbox lock is on the lower left side of the head (where you can reach it)
• There is a built in projector to give the appearance of being near or under water
• The implementation of the small apron screens is simple genius as a perfect way to deliver a 2.0 experience but NOT ruin the classic game looks or feel
• The pop bumpers RGB implementation is just perfect. They turn red to give you visual cues when adding to Super Jackpot or battling Mermaids
• The signed Haggis comic/poster is well done and is meaningful to me (framing IP as we speak)
• The game comes with pre-installed Titan flipper rubber
• After 50 games or so, I still can’t see a single mark on the playfield due to Damien’s specially engineered acrylic overlay
• Rubber feet and leg protecting washers are provided in the goodie bag
• The game has multiple areas where clear/mirrored acrylic is laser cut and inserted into the cabinet. This is purely cosmetic, adds not incremental functionality BUT looks amazing, rich and custom
• The coin door is skinned with a mirror polished stainless plate. In fact all of the exterior metal on the cabinet is the same high polish mirror finish
• The playfield service mechanism is a godsend given how heavy this playfield is. Although heavy, the mech makes managing it much easier than the older style with a prop-rod. It has wheels in the back that roll forward to a very positive stop and it can be moved up completely vertically for servicing.
• The playfield glass has highly polished edges – who does that?
• The back glass IS a back glass

Why She’s Special

It just makes sense for me to refer to my last blog post to attempt to explain what I love about this game. That post was written entirely on the subject of trying to understand why I like some games more than others. When I reviewed the content, it became very clear why Fathom Mermaid Edition is so special. Two notes on my comments that follow. First, my thoughts are based almost entirely on the gameplay for the 2.0 code and second, the game is still new to me and is my understanding of the current code:

• Achievement

  • Part of the good feelings I get here are related to the clear goals listed below. I know what I need to do (or at least I know that after a while, I’ll know). Yes, the code is new to me so I’m no expert but this is not a complicated machine. When I complete a set of upper lane roll-overs, I look forward to the RGB color change in the pops. When I make the skill-shot I appreciate the small screen telling me so – and this was not possible on the 1981 version. I like the idea/story of collecting Mermaid artifacts and being able to see what I’ve done as the game progresses.

• Clear Goals

  • The game mechanics have not changed from 1981. They were simple then, and remain that way today. The 2 scoops present themselves with an obvious goal to “shoot them” and the strategically placed drop targets do the same. What has changed in the new code is how all of these mechs interact with the new rules. The reinvented “story” now 40 odd years into the future did not muddy that original clarity at all. Blue targets qualify modes/multiballs by hitting the lagoon scoop and green targets qualify Mermaid battles at the right side cave scoop. Hitting the 1-2-3 targets in sequence qualifies mermaid Multiball

• Moments:

  • There are “moments” in Fathom that just could not exist without the 2.0 code. As I said in my prior blog post titled “Understanding Why” – moments matter to me. The well integrated (but simple) projector gives the illusion of playing under or around water and adds tremendously to the overall gameplay experience. The incredible use of color in the RGB pop bumpers gives me a burst of color and visual cue when I’ve completed another set of rollover lanes. I love the music shift to pounding, pulsing techno beat when I’m in a mermaid battle, along with the light show, the threatening female call outs and the red score display are another anxiety (good thing) inducing moment. Ripping the spinner makes me feel like I won a million dollars due mostly to the incredible sound. Not just the spinner sound but the equipment and speakers used to reproduce it. I actually look forward to each “end of ball” musical crescendo as it’s one of the best in pinball. Sometimes I “short it” by double flipping and create my own musical ending to the last ball in play – priceless!

• Shot Variety:

  • While Fathom may not compare to a Keith Elwin game in terms of shot variety, there are enough different shots to keep my interest AND several of them are challenging. Fathom is no one hit wonder where once you master that “one shot” the game becomes easy. The shot to the Lagoon and the Cave are both a challenge. Knocking down the 1-2-3 drops IN ORDER is a challenge and in the 2.0 code, getting through all the modes to arrive at Mermaid Treasure (the wizard mode) is downright difficult. Along the way, there are plenty of targets to shoot for and in the case of the “blue vs green” drops, each accomplishes a different set of goals. I think Fathom had shot variety as a strength in 1981, that strength has been built upon with Marty’s new 2.0 code

She’s Sensitive

One thing to note, and take it with a grain of salt. This was MY experience for sure – the cabinet flipper switch gap is hyper sensitive to being set perfectly (I’m specifically referring to the right side double stack switch). First, I am certain my switch stack had a continuity issue between the contacts and the copper leaves. I was able to measure it using my multimeter out of the game. The second switch (runs the upper right flipper) would on occasion not function at all. When I tested the switch for continuity from one blade to the other, it tested “open”. If I wiggled it around a bit I could get it to test closed so I ordered a new switch. When I received it (overnight – thank you Pinball Life!) I gapped it before soldering it to the short wire harness (thank you Haggis!) then after screwing it into place I played a test game. Now the flippers felt stronger and the upper was functional but had some flutter and issues with “hold up”. I pulled the switch again and very carefully and deliberately gapped it super tight, paying attention to moving the back support blade (non-conducting) toward the outer cabinet to give as much back pressure support as possible to the contacts. I also used a small piece of 4,000 grit sandpaper to burnish the contacts. Sandpaper on high voltage contacts is not advised so YMMV. This end result was a game changer and the game now plays with zero flipper issues

Summary

The Haggis team has accomplished the impossible. They’ve taken a beloved game from the 80’s and made it SIGNIFICANTLY better in every possible way. The playfield should last forever. The gameplay in 2.0 mode is compelling, interesting and more fun than the original. The sound and lights show are almost without modern peers. The storyline and code as currently integrated checks most of the boxes of “why I love pinball. Simply put, the Haggis Fathom Mermaid Edition Pinball is a monument to how all pinball should be built – with care and attention to detail. Find one to play, you’ll be impressed.

Here’s a link to the TOPcast episode (look for #56)

Here’s a quick game video of me playing on code version .82

The excellent launch article written at TWIP can be found HERE

The “Fixes” (more images follow this section)

The Flippers:

The flippers required ordering and soldering in a new double stack flipper cabinet switch stack, then burnishing the contacts with 4000 grit sandpaper and then carefully gapping the new switch stack with very minimal gap and maximum back pressure/resistance from the support blades to ensure a fast contact and a strong/pressured one.

The Ball Launch:

The manual ball launch issue was because the auto-launch was not making contact with both sides of the ball (see gap at red arrow in image). This was pushing the ball away from the rubber tip of the plunger, creating too much distance to properly launch the ball when plunging by hand. I pulled the auto plunger and gently bent both tabs (see white arrows) toward the right. Once bent to the right it allowed the ball to drop back about 3/16” closer to the plunger. While I had the playfield up I switched out the silver plunger spring for a blue one. Finally, the drain inducing outlane was the most complex to correct.

The Outlane Drain

The rightmost outlane is NOT a drain. Rather it’s a relatively safe and repeatable return to the right flipper. On my game, the ball would hit the small rubber on that small post just before the drain hole, then bounce into the upper right corner of the small lane guide plastic, then into the back of the sling rubber and finally back down the drain. It was pretty clear by looking at the left side (a mirror of the right) that the stainless ball guide needed to be bent more to cleanly feed the ball to the flipper.

Here is what I did:

• use a Dremel to oval out the holes on the small plastic lane guide (do the green protector and the printed plastic)
• this allows you to drop those plastics and open up the lane (my ball was hitting the leading edge/corner as it tried to enter)
• next remove the two plastics that sit on the rail and cover the “C” shaped stainless steel lane guide
• pull the “C” shaped stainless lane guide (use 7mm socket and an Allen key to remove 2 bolts and nuts in 2 mounting tabs that go thru PF
• remove the 2 Phillips screws that are inserted sideways into the rails using a stubby screwdriver or right angle screwdriver
• pull the guide with the PF flat as there are 2 thin, white nylon washers under each mounting tab

Now, time to bend the guide:

• put the end of the lane guide (up to the first mounting tab) into a bench vise (protect it with tape of thin rubber) and gently bend
• note you’re bending only a 1” or so section of the guide, starting with the first bend as close to the mounting tab as you can get
• start NEAR the mounting tab and work your way toward the end, it bends easier than you think – you should bend 4 times in that total inch
• each “bend” should be just enough for you to feel the metal “give”, then stop, a little is a lot
• if you don’t start at the mounting tab, you’ll remove the bend you just made when you put it back into the vise!

More Game Images

FATHOM REVISITED RULES v0.82

MERMAID MULTIBALL
• 1,2,3 in sequence starts Mermaid Multiball – 2 ball
• 1,2,3 down during Mermaid Multiball = Jackpot
• Jackpot value increases with each set of banks down
• Super Jackpot awarded after 5 sets of banks down
• Underwater Breathing is awarded by getting the Super Jackpot which enables the player to have enough air to get to the mermaid treasure

LAGOON MULTIBALL
• Hitting the blue drop targets on the left target bank lights lock at top saucer for Lagoon 3 ball multiball
• All blue inline targets down score Super Jackpot in saucer – holds ball for 10 seconds
• Both balls in saucer lights Super Jackpot at Extra Ball target
• A Navigation Device is awarded by getting the Super Jackpot which is needed to navigate the caves and find the mermaid treasure

MERMAIDEN BATTLES
• There are 4 mermaidens to battle
• Uses a “fighting game” mechanic with health bars – time battle
• If battle is won, then Cave Escape begins immediately
• Successful Cave Escape gives lit perks to the lane returns during Mermaid Queen Battle

CAVE ESCAPES
• After defeating a Mermaiden, others start attacking and you have to return to the boat
• Here’s how to return to the boat:
o JETSKI – use rollovers to get speed to return to the boat
o WINCH – hit drop targets to rise up to the boat
o SCUBAJET – spinner primes the Scubajet, then any scoop to get to the boat
o DOLPHINS – pop bumper hit make Dolphins swim to the boat

MERMAID QUEEN
• 4 Mermaidens to battle along with the Queen
• Mermaiden shots are: Lagoon targets, Cave targets, left bank Drop targets and Pops
• The Spinner charges a Sonar Bomb to use as an extra hit to the Queen
• Final shot is to the Lagoon to destroy the Queen
• After Mermaid Queen is defeated, take victory laps
• Other perks: 1,2,3 targets in order gives a Mystery Award
• The Mermaids Trident grants access to the Treasure Cave

FATHOM JACKPOT
• Need to progress various playfield shots to light the Fathom Jackpot at the right Stand Up target
• Must be completed on 1 ball to light (can be set to progressive in menu)
• Shots: left bank Drop targets, Spinner and Lagoon Drop targets, ABC lanes, Pop hits x 50 and final shot to the Extra Ball stand up target

MERMAID TREASURE LIGHT
• Lit at Lagoon saucer
• When successfully collected:
o Trident from Mermaid Queen
o Navigation Device from Lagoon mutliball
o Underwater Breathing from Mermaid multiball
o Treasure Key from playfield Super Jackpot
• If you fail to complete the wizard mode (drain ball) you lose the Treasure Key and will need to get the playfield Super Jackpot again

MERMAID TREASURE GAMEPLAY
• Work sequentially through playfield elements to get to the Treasure Room
• Navigation Device needs to be powered up (spinner and pop hits) to then light the way to a room that is locked
• A shot is lit to progress through each locked room: ABC, 1,2,3, Cave drops, Lagoon drops, Left bank and final shot to the Cave

Wow does this story start a while ago! 1966 to be exact. While the Batman craze was in full swing here, Japan was going wild about something else – Ultraman. The Ultraman franchise began with a few trial episodes under the title “Ultra Q” then quickly shifted to the Ultraman franchise of today. According to Wikipedia the Ultraman brand generated $7.4 billion in merchandising revenue from 1966 to 1987, equivalent to more than $18 billion adjusted for inflation. The Wiki entry goes on to say “Ultraman was the world’s third top-selling licensed character in the 1980s, largely due to his popularity in Asia. References to Ultraman are abundant in Japanese pop culture, much like references to Superman in U.S. culture.” Bottom line is that Ultraman is likely one of the biggest superhero franchises in history that you’ve never heard of. I was intrigued when in mid 2021 Spooky announced the game (alongside Halloween), but like many others was unaware of the scale and magnitude of Ultraman worldwide. Reader, you know by now that my “unaware” was about to change. Time to go deep.

I started my recent Ultraman journey where most of the kids did when it came out in the late 60’s. I watched the shows. I purchased a total of 7 Ultraman boxed sets in bluray. They can be found on Amazon and they are on the affordable side. The “first series” ran from 1966 to 1967, but the franchise continues to this day with fresh movie releases every few years. I watched all of the episodes from the first year and a few from the later series as well. It’s an interesting show in many ways. For someone in their 50’s, those ways almost never line up with “great entertainment”. It is, however “interesting” entertainment. The creative thought that went into the Kaiju (monsters) and the beautiful costume/rubber suit designs is marvelous. The “over-the-top” acting by the stars of the show and the beautiful land/cityscapes of pre-70’s Japan are something to both chuckle at and appreciate (and sometimes in the same scene). Yes, once in a while I do find myself lost in the story of a good old fashioned monster movie, but the Kaiju battles between Ultraman and the bad guys (monsters) are meant to satisfy a 7 year old and to enjoy them, you’ll need to put your adult brain in a box for a few minutes. Appreciate them for what they are and don’t expect the camp and abundant adult humor that BM66 brings.

The game is designed and built by Spooky Pinball out of Benton Wisconsin and if you don’t know the Spooky Pinball story, it’s worth discovering for yourself.
The newspaper headline might read “Family starts a small business manufacturing and selling the most complex entertainment device on earth and WINS!”

Buy or rent the movie on Amazon at the link:
https://www.amazon.com/Things-That-Go-Bump-Night/dp/B074MLWZY7

Game Animations: David Fawzma, David Van Es, And Matt Frank
Game Code: David Fawzma 
Licensing: Charlie Emery
Artwork: Matt Frank
Rules: Bug Emery and David Fawzma 
Engineering: Spooky Luke
Wiring/Nasty Nuts and Bolts: AJ
Custom Music: Matt “Count D” Montgomery 
Sculpts: Matt Reister

The wait for my Ultraman was long but not painfully so. Spooky does a good job communicating the general timeline and setting expectations so if impatience gets the best of you, it’s your fault not theirs. The wait gave me time to sell a few other games in preparation (Roller Games, Volcano and Space Mission). I was the very first order into Joe at Pinball Star when the game went live for sale. I almost had no choice but to order the game as the “live for sale” date was my birthday. The way Spooky handles orders does not align exactly with how “fast” you placed your order, so I was a bit down the line in production. The Ultraman edition was limited to 500 units total alongside the (released at the same time) Halloween title with the same game design but differing artwork. I received my notice of game assignment (#191 Collectors Edition, hold the butter thank you) on July 24th 2021 and picked up my game at the Dayton freight terminal in Knoxville April 30th 2022. Total time elapsed around 250 days. Not bad for a boutique Pinball company in the middle of a pandemic and short of parts.

As I waited for my game to be built, I became more and more concerned about what I would receive. The skinny on Pinside from folks that had early games delivered was not good. The negative feedback was broad. First the code. It was almost non-existent. Not the first time I had seen this. I was one of the lucky few to get a BM66 SLE and it came with bare bones code on delivery too. No worries, as code can be added. There was also a pretty wide range of quality issues. Parts not fully screwed down, mechs not working, ball hang-ups in multiple locations, topper problems and more. Many of these issues proved to be minor and Spooky either sorted them for the owners or the owners fixed it themselves. The most nagging of all the feedback was the gameplay. There was talk of it being clunky or without flow. Some went so far as to say it just wasn’t that enjoyable. To be fair, when the code is not fully developed, the gameplay will suffer. I worried most about this type feedback but I also remembered how other games suffered this same negativity, only to emerge later as highly regarded (think Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Gaurdians of the Galaxy and more). I made the decision to be patient, wait for my game to be delivered and make up my own mind about game play. I’m so glad I did.

When Joe from Pinball Star gave me the Pro number for the game delivery, I tracked it right away. I was surprised to see it had already been picked up in Benton WI and was on it’s way! It also showed a delivery in just 2 days. I called the moment it arrived at the terminal and asked to come pick it up. The team at Dayton was super helpful and in 15 minutes I had signed for it and loaded it onto the back of the pickup. There was NO chance of rain that day but (in typical game day pickup fashion) of course, on the way home I experienced 10-12 drops on my windshield. The remainder of the trip proved dry and once home, my daughter helped me tip the game off the truck in the garage. Later that evening we had some very dear friends over (Sonny and Carolyn) and he was kind enough to lend me a hand in hauling the game into the Loft and setting it up. Sonny is 87 years young and always ready to learn something new! We used my Escalara to walk it up the steps followed by my homemade pinball setup tool (rocker, RV jack and drill) to get it up in the air and install the legs.

The setup went quickly as I’ve done this a few times 🙂
Once up and plugged in, I asked Sonny to do the honors of powering on the machine. He reached under and rolled the rocker switch and the game came slowly to life. These new machines take a minute … like grab a sandwich minute. Eventually the game fully booted and it was magnificent. Just beautiful. Even in attract mode, the light show was awesome. I hit play. Nothing happened. Well, I take that back. A ball appeared in the shooter lane but the machine was completely silent. No music, no callouts. Time for some troubleshooting. My first stop was behind the backglass but I found only a small circuit board that couldn’t possibly be the sound board. Time to pull the playfield. The PF is very tight in my machine so I used my side blade protectors to ensure I did not scratch the beautiful art blades that came installed from Spooky. Once the playfield was lifted it was easy to find the sound source. Spooky was using a well known Lepai amp to drive the speakers. These are inexpensive but effective class D Chinese amps that pack a lot of output power into a romance novel sized package. I checked all the wiring into and out of the amp – all good. The control knobs were relatively close to the edge of the cabinet so I had to use a small mirror to read them and see what levels they had been set at. I got to the power switch and found the issue. The amp was switched off. With a flick of the finger the largest issue with the game out of the box was fixed. Now to play some pinball!

Gameplay. If you’re reading this while the game is still in production, then this is what you came for. If you’ve found this content sometime after that, then I’m hoping it’s confirmation of what you may already know. If you are considering buying an Ultraman on the used market, read on for at least one persons thoughts on the gameplay. Note that as I write this the code is still young/incomplete and the gameplay is likely to both change and improve over time.

Let’s start with the bullet point summary:

• It’s different, and I mean that in the most complimentary way
• It’s a nice combo of both easy and hard things to accomplish
• It’s beautiful – in every single way
• The light show is excellent and fits the theme well
• The theme integration to gameplay is very good
• The left ramp rattles a good bit but rarely rejects, so it “looks” clunky but does not play that way
• The center ramp will reject with a weaker shot and that fact only makes the clean shot feel even more satisfying
• The center ramp can be made with both the right and left flippers
• The right side single drop target/ball lock is a great mech, but needs more supporting code
• The variety of skill shots is something refreshing and a nice selection of risk/reward
• The ability to restart multiball with scoop shot is very “Ballyish” and a welcome bit of code (think Snack Bar in CFTBL)
• The lifters are unlike anything else in pinball and during normal gameplay force a change in your style (not a negative IMO)
• The lifters during multiball are a significant challenge as you don’t have the moving ball on the habitrail/ramp as a visual reference
• The upper playfields are the best I have ever seen and the topmost (Headquarters) is just killer fun
• The outlanes are VERY forgiving and allow you to focus on the center drain and ball control
• The shot variety is excellent and balanced from both the right and left flippers
• The drop targets create nice gameplay variety and future code may enhance further
• The sound quality is there in spades (bass is killer) but needs some leveling and more callouts
• There is plenty of “flow” potential in the game, your skill will determine flow and combos
• The toy sculpts are excellent and close to the best I’ve seen in any game

On top of all that the CE “comes with” many extras:

• Laser cut side rails, powder coated and with colored inserts
• Motorized custom topper with RGB lighting
• Pre-installed orange plastic protectors
• Customer blue powder coating INCLUDING backbox and coindoor
• Custom shooter rod
• RGB speaker lights
• Shaker motor and knocker
• Art blades pre-installed
• A signature plaque from Bin Furuya is a very nice touch for all us Kaiju geeks.
• Bin was the actor in the Ultraman suit (uncredited) for the 1966 debut of Ultraman

From here, I’ll just give you some stream-of-consiousness commentary of how it feels to play Ultraman. This is not going to be an extensive “review”. After all, I’ve played less than 50 games to date. Like I said earlier, it’s different. So what does “different” mean?? That’s really the $64,000 question. What are the differences and what are we comparing it to? In my mind standard pinball starts with the “fan layout”. A fan layout has ramps that return the ball to an inlane/flipper. What makes Ultraman play different is that those returns to the flippers via ramp or habitrail are missing. They don’t exist. The entire experience of watching a ball roll down that ramp, drop into the inlane and then mentally prepare for the shot are missing. Well EXCEPT for that very last part and BTW, you don’t get a ton of time or line of sight. The “mentally prepare for the shot” time exists for sure, but it is shortened both in time and visbility. Time is cut because the location of the lifter and is just inches from the flipper and visibility is reduced because unlike a ramp/habitrail drop, you only get to “see” the ball for maybe 3 inches of travel total. There – I said it. The largest difference in gameplay for Ultraman is the impact that the lifters have on gameplay. For the most part, I like it. I appreciate the challenge. YMMV

The other difference I’ve experienced is related to the above. The ball can spend a bit of time in the subway system and can move in a surpising number of paths. It’s by design. That can translate to a good portion of the time that the ball is simply not visible or in those moments, not available for gameplay. Given that the game is also at times frenetic and blindingly fast. The “break” presented by subway travel is not a negative. I use this time to plan the next shot and take note of where I am in the game. I’m still surprised by how many places the ball can exit the first upper playfield. All of this can translate at times to a feeling of “losing the ball” or at a minimum wondering where it went. Some of this is the newness of the game and over time, I’ll get to know all of the various ball paths. Even so, the variety of shots and ball paths lead me to add this as part of the overall definition of “different” – again though, I’ll add “in a good way”.

In closing, I would say that the quality and variety of the engineering is something I would also credit as additive to gameplay. This is not a simple, single level game. It’s one of the most complex multi-level games manufactured by anyone, let alone a company with new designers at the healm. I think if you took away some of the (unwarranted) complaints of the lifter mechs and view the remainder of the game as a whole, you’d be impressed at what a young Spooky team has accomplished.

The game has two complete and intensely fun to play upper playfields, both with a drop target and one with dual spinners and a connected a teeter totter ramp! All of this innovation and creativity packed into one game that manages to deliver a satisfying theme integration based a foreign licensed property that most Americans have never heard of. A risky endeavor to be “different”, but with a hugely successful outcome. Congratulations Spooky team, well done.

Shuwatch!

Change wishlist:

• UI screen needs some changes: visibility of score and ball count is terrible to my aging eyes
• The call-outs need to increase in variety and tighten up from a choreography perspective

Minor QC issues on my game when unboxed:

• The center sticker on the apron is installed crooked (no just a little either)
• The right lifter was occasionally sticking “up” (found a loose cable catching the gear and zip tied it out of the way)

Creature from the Black Lagoon. The name alone puts your mind in a place of intrigue and mystery. I was made aware of a “Creature” that was local to Knoxville at a time when I was in the process of upgrading the collection while not “expanding the game count”. I planned to fund the Creature purchase by selling 3 other games: Roller Games, Jokerz and Volcano. When those games sold, I had no idea what would be replacing them and the idea of a Creature from the Black Lagoon was not even on my radar.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046876/

Creature was a game that was known to me since my first year of collecting. It has an interesting background and building it required the acquisition of a license by Bally from Universal Studios. Bally made 7,841 units of the game and it uses the Williams WPC board set. It’s loosely based on the 1954 movie and because Bally wanted to use the Creature, logo and name – they sought and acquired the licensing rights. They did not get the rights to use the actors voices or likenesses so they had to get creative with those assets. The game was designed by John Trudeau. One of the main characters (Richard Carlson) who is represented on the backglass with the pith helmet is actually an aged image of John Trudeau’s son who was then a teenager. The call outs are fantastic and were all done by Bally employees:

• Paul Heitsch [Creature sound & music] – “On with the show!”, “Thank you, enjoy the film!” and “I’m suffocating!”
• Allison Quant [uncredited market employee] – All female call-outs
• Matt Booty [Bally sound dept manager] – “Oh, come on!”
• Rich Karstens [Bally sound programmer] – “Move your car”

The game ends with an image on the DMD of an Illinois license plate from 1959. Given that the movie was a 1954 release, it makes you wonder why? John Trudeau answered that question and it relates to the music in the game and keeping continuity. Some of the songs that are included came out AFTER 1954 so the 1959 license plate is meant to show a “revival” presentation of the Creature movie and thus preserving the timeline.

• The music is 100% pure unadulterated nostalgia and there are 5 songs in the game from the 50’s:
• “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets
• “Get a Job” by The Silhouettes
• “Summertime Blues” by Eddie Cochran
• “Willie and the Hand Jive” by Johnny Otis
• “Red River Rock” (Johnny and the Hurricanes version)

The DMD begins the game with a strange term “Dot-Mation” and with no explanation as to what that means. The programmer, Jeff Johnson explained that it was a new marketing term meant to show a competitive advantage to Data East at the time. Dot-Mation was a term that referred to the ability of the DMD to by synchronized to voices in the game – a first at the time.

• Some interesting tidbits:
• The peeping Tom is a dot-matrix representation of Dwight Sullivan (now at Stern Pinball)
• The guy getting strangled at the Snack Bar is Jeff Johnson (now owner of Smashhouse Games)
• The song “At the Hop” was originally selected to use in the game but was pulled due to costs
• Kevin O’Connor shot 35mm images of a videotape of the movie playing on his TV in order to do some of the backglass art
• There are 2 flasher bulbs behind Julia Adams hair on the backglass – they were originally planned to be behind other parts of her body – management found out and made an “adjustment”.

Now on to the rest of “my Creature” story!
Over a year ago, a colleague at work shared that he had a Creature from the Black Lagoon pinball game and we chatted briefly about it and about my collection here at the Pinball Loft. A few months ago that same person mentioned that he might want to sell it and get a more modern game. I told him at the time (due to massive price inflation) that I would likely not want to pay what he could get out of it on the open market. I made an offer and in the same message shared that I was certain he could get $1,000+ more for it by posting to Facebook Marketplace or on Pinside. A few weeks passed and he reached back out again sharing that he thought I should buy it and he would be willing to drop his price. he said it was easier for him to sell to me and he would like to see if we could work it out. I told him that I could also come up a bit on my offer and I would love to come see it. We are both insanely busy at work and it took a month just to find an evening that worked for both of us. We finally scheduled it and I drove the short distance from the office to see the game in his basement. When I left my house that morning (well aware that I would be checking out and likely buying a game) I checked the weather and there was NO indication of rain whatsoever. Hint to readers of this blog … that meant that if I DID buy the game the chance of rain would shift to 100%. I did and it did – rain that is, just short of a downpour and I was ill prepared. You can see in the images of the game sitting in the lawn and behind it the clouds look ominous. I’ll get back to the weather in a minute but first I’ll finish out the buy!

One of the big mistakes I keep making (in life and pinball) is assuming that the other person I’m working/communicating/negotiating with is in the same place as I am from a knowledge or preparedness perspective.

I left the house that morning and DID think about bringing a dolly but … no way he wont have a dolly, after all he’s a pinball guy right? I did bring a few tools but just the basics, like a wrench for the leg bolts etc. Probably all I’ll need if I buy the game right? We’ll see how this ends but go ahead now and assume the worst.

When I got down to the basement, the game was set up and working and a quick examination of the boards showed a brand new CPU board so no worries about battery corrosion. The playfield was very good but not perfect (images NEVER show the real condition unless they are purposefully shot close up). There was some insert separation (nothing major) but no insert wear. There was some broken star posts and at least one that was yoked out of it’s hole. The lock down mech was bent badly on the right side and the coin door bezel was in rough shape. None of these things were deal breakers in any way, just things that tended to bring the buyer (me) back down to earth from the pie in the sky thoughts of HUO games with under 500 plays. This was not one of those games. The hologram did not light up either but I know and trust the seller completely and he shared that it previously lit up fine and that the creature hologram was mostly green with some blue hues (later proved to be spot on accurate). I checked to see if the hologram was at least “there” because a replacement is $1,000, IF you can find one (it was installed). When I pulled the playfield to check the underside and cabinet, I noticed it did not pull smoothly and saw the pivot hinge bolts were loose with one installed backwards. The game had no mods on it whatsoever. Odd for a Creature and an indication that it had only recently been off-route and then owned by a non-pinball person. There are a half-dozen must have mods for Creature and this game had none of them. Bottom line was that it was priced right for the condition and I told my colleague I would take it.

When I began the process of folding the head, we hit our first snag and it was a big one … it was missing the locking mech. Ugh. Crap. Ugh again. Pinball reader you know the pain this is going to cause. There is no way to fold the head without the DMD and translight simply falling out of the backbox. That $8 lock holds $500 worth of parts in place while they are folded and mine was MIA. Oh well, there’s a fix but it will take a minute. I chased the wiring from the DMD back to the boards and began to photograph and unplug each in a methodical order. Once that was completed, I set the DMD aside and opened the coin door to pull the glass, remove the balls and clean the cabinet of any parts (including the coin box). When I pulled the coin box, I found the entire lock mechanism and key sitting in the bottom. Assuming that it was originally pulled for a very good reason, I nonetheless took a shot at re-installing the lock. It took a bit of McGivering to get it to work (the lock barrel was just a bit long causing the rotating hasp/latch to extend past the relieved wood area) but I did get it to function. I quickly reinstalled the DMD (didn’t take the time to plug it back in) then popped the translight on top of it, turned the lock and folded the head carefully down to a doubled up piece of cardboard.

A few minutes later we had the machine wrapped in plastic and I asked my buddy where his hand cart was. He said “I don’t have one”. Followed by “I thought we would just carry it up the stairs”. Followed by “I have a bad back” (he really does). I recalled the nearly vertical flight of stairs we came down to get to the game and groaned inwardly. I agreed that given the circumstances, going up the stairs was the best solution and shared with him that we would have no choice but to remove the legs to do so. It was at this moment I was kicking myself for not bringing my Escalara. He grabbed a couple of sawhorses and set them at the base of the stairs so we could easily pop the legs off and get prepared for the “big lift”. As he was setting the sawhorses, I asked him again how difficult he thought it would be if we just took the game out the back door, then around the house. He had previously told me that this was an all grass and fairly steep route with no pathways. He invited me to check it out and I immediately changed our plans. We would go out the back, leave the legs on, carry it as far as we could comfortably and sit it down to rest as needed. I was less worried about me going up the stairs and more worried about doing permanent damage to my buddy’s back over a pinball machine. We got it up the hill and to the driveway in just a few minutes and with no incidents larger than his son taking a few shots to the shin from the front legs (he was backing up the hill).

I took a few quick pictures of the game sitting on the lawn and noticed some ominous clouds over the Smokey Mountains in the background. Wait … it’s not supposed to rain tonight. Wait again … I just bought a pinball machine and now you can bet it will rain. It did. A lot. As we loaded the game I got hit with a few sprinkles. My buddy asked if I had a tarp. I said that I purposefully didn’t bring one because the weather report showed 0% chance of rain. He ran inside and grabbed a Harbor Freight furniture blanket (thank goodness). By the time I had it strapped down, said my good-byes and closed the tailgate, it was raining “hard”. He ran back in the house and before I could leave the driveway, he came to my truck, reached through my rolled down window (in the rain) and handed me a roll of painters plastic while saying “you might need this”. I put the truck in gear, still in denial that it’s raining because it’s not supposed to and drove off. It rained harder. Not biblical levels but “anything you are hauling the bed of a pick-up truck that is not covered is going to get wet” levels. I pressed on because I could see clear spots in the sky. The rain followed me. I made a turn that I believed would get me home but in the rainstorm I must have misjudged and wound up on a road that ended in a cul-d-sac and … it was raining there too. I was trying to keep my speed up because that provided some shielding to the game from rain via the truck cab acting as a blocker but as you know driving on the wrong road in a cul-de-sac is not the best way to maintain speed. I finally recognized where I had gone wrong and was back on a path to get home. It was a 30 minute drive that ended up delivering various amounts of rain for 20 minutes of the total. I was thankful for the furniture blanket and hopeful that it was drying out in between the rain drops and assisted by the wind whistling by at 75mph on the freeway. I finally arrived home as it was getting dark and quickly unloaded the game and removed the wet (but surprisingly not soaked) blanket. The game was dry and in fine shape.

Right away, in the bright LED light of the garage, I could see that I had a bunch of minor work to do. First order of business was to simply wash the cabinet of some of the years of stains and dirt that come from being on a game route. Next I had to trim the cabinet decals where the legs had pressed into them and subsequently ripped and pushed them back. Once the game was safely up in the loft, I quickly crafted some “Stern style” cabinet protectors from black fiberboard and installed them underneath a fresh set or (much larger) leg protectors (the colorful ones) that would hide any of the decal damage. With my fiberboard protectors on, the decals would be forever safe from any further damage. With the game setup and running I turned my attention to the playfield and backbox. Over the next week I tackled the following:

• Added a fresh sheet of PDI glass
• Printed and installed apron cards
• Replaced the backbox lock with period correct one
• Wired in Brightcap EVO pop bumper lights (tied to GI)
• Leveled the lagoon window to reduce edge wear
• Rewired the hologram bulb (wire had been cut)
• Waxed the playfield and cleaned old wax from posts
• Repaired the coin door service menu button mount
• Washed the speaker panel
• Vacuumed the cabinet
• Replaced a missing nut on the KISS plastic
• Replaced 3 broken orange star posts
• Fixed the slide ball deflector placement
• LED’d the entire backbox (flasher remain incandescent)
• Re-attach J133 pin 9 (start button lighting)
• Removed backbox diffusor and installed new 3D print
• Replaced a dozen burnt or dim LEDs under the playfield
• Added a few color matched LEDs under inserts that needed them
• Pulled the translight off the backglass to thoroughly wash both
• Added an MRS switch in place of mechanical one in bowl

I’m not done yet! I’ve got a brand new lock down bar on order (the one in the game is bent), and an acrylic Creature to install in place of the hologram that is just now beginning to lose it’s bright green luster. By the time I’m done I’ll have added another $1,000+ to the cost of the game. It’s a keeper so that’s OK with me.

As I completed the repairs and upgrades I recalled that a year ago I had went on a month long streak of buying up every 3D movie I could get my hands on. The studios were not making many more movies in 3D as the home projector 3D phase was coming to an end. I have an Epson 3D capable projector and the price of the companion 3D wireless glasses had dropped enough ($75 per pair) that is was now a viable option to buy the glasses, get some movies and experience 3D right in my own home. One of the movies I bought and watched was “Creature from the Black lagoon”. I remembered how tame it was by today’s horror standards but at the same time how tense some of the scenes were and how cool the 3D was during some of the scenes – especially given the age of the movie. I thoroughly enjoyed it. One of the cool things about the Pinball Loft is that for most of the licensed themes in the collection, I have signed memorabilia from the artists, actors or entertainers. For Creature I had nothing. It was time to fix that. I went online and was quickly able to find a drive in speaker and original autographs of Julia Adams and Ricou Browning (Creature in the water). After receiving the items it took a few hours to crack the speaker in half, and I’m now in the process of creating a proper companion piece to go alongside the Creature pinball!

Well a few days and a few dozen games later, I marveled that Creature was finally part of the Pinball Loft collection and although the game count in the room had now dropped below 40, the quality was climbing. At least the perceived quality. To be honest, I had only played Creature once and I barely remembered the gameplay. I’d read every review I could on the game and already knew it was “beloved” by seasoned veterans and newbies alike. Before I brought Creature home, I wondered if I would feel the same? After all, I own Medieval Madness. The number one rated pinball of all time. I bought the remake because it was a bargain when it was introduced by Chicago Gaming and it had legendary status as a classic Pinball from the 90’s that was a “must own”. I’ve played it a bit and it’s still in the collection, but it never connected with me. There are things about the game that I think are cool and amazing but I’m a long way from loving the game play. The exploding castle may be one of the coolest mechs in pinball. The call-outs are among the funniest. The playfield art is stunning. Chicago Coin built it like a tank. Yet, at the end of the day I just don’t play it much. The gameplay does not draw me in. There is no “one more game” feeling after I finish.

Creature has been VERY different. In a good way. Literally from the first games I put on it when I got it home it felt “good”, easy to play, simple to understand and easy shots (for the most part). It’s hard to just pick one or two things that make it special. It’s not just the simplicity that has me playing the game every night (and not turning my Godzilla LE on at all). It’s the whole package that makes it work. The music just makes you feel good and reminds you of life before cell phones and the internet. It’s a nostalgic sounding and looking game. I have many fond memories of going to the drive-in as a child and a a teenager. Drive-ins were (and are) such a unique and special experience. One night, after finishing a game on Creature, I spent a half hour just researching the “Starlight Drive-in” hoping I would discover it was a real place, with a specific history that I could learn more about. I found the name only to discover there were dozens of “Starlight Drive-ins” and several that were well known and had long histories before the modern world gobbled them up. The call outs are “just right” too with modes that match the culture and vibe of the drive-in era. From “Move Your Car”, to “Double Feature” to the “Focus” that gets screamed at you when you drain – all of it aligns perfectly with the drive-in experience.

The story that Creature invites you to join … of going to a drive-in and paying your ticket, kissing your girl, riding the slide and getting some snacks is simple and engaging. Follow that story and with some luck and skill, you’ll start the multiball and become part of a movie in progress to “search” for the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Were it not for the latter part (Creature multiball) the game would likely just be “too easy” for some and downright boring for others. The addition of the Creature multiball creates a very unique juxtaposition of simple and easy (pre-multiball FILM effort) to intense and challenging (Creature multiball) and all in the blink of an eye. It’s the excitement of chasing that multiball and the challenge of playing it well that gives Creature it’s unique last ability. After a dozen plays or so, I remember standing with my hands resting on the lockdown bar with a big smile on my face and thinking to myself “I get it”, I now know why this is considered a classic.

I had the game for about a week when my daughter popped over to the house for dinner. When we were done I asked if she wanted to play some pinball. She’s not a fan but begrudgingly agreed in order to keep her old man happy. Of course we would play Creature as it was the hot title in rotation (read: the only game I had turned on in a week). It was VERY interesting to watch her play. It was not the same as other games I’d seen her engage with. Normally she would just flip around, trying to keep the ball alive like so many other casual players. I spent 30 seconds explaining to her how the basic rules worked. I shared with her that she was going to a drive-in and had 4 things to do at that drive-in before the story shifted to her becoming part of the Creature movie. No surprise she understood the rules – they are simple. The big surprise was watching her attempt to achieve the goals. She was shooting for the items that helped her spell out “Film”. She was targeting them purposefully. She knew where they were and at the end of game one had achieved 3 of the 4 letters. I was impressed! Her very first game and she was able to understand rules, know where the shots were and then execute on them. That’s a lot of real pinball packed into a first game, on a new machine from a very casual (barely interested) player!

We ended our 2 game session with her saying “I really like that one”. Out of nearly 40 games in the room, that’s quite a compliment to Creature. It’s also a testament to why after 30 years have passed, it’s still a much loved game. Creature is special in the way that it brings ALL of the elements of pinball together into one cohesive, nostalgic, campy, fun package. My only regret is that it took me 10 years to get one.

My wife is a huge GnR fan. When I told her that JJP was re-making the game that Data East had done years ago, she said “get one”, followed by “the best one they have”. Little did I know that the CE version I was chasing would sell out (500 units) in an hour. JJP sold over $6MM worth of CE games in 60 minutes. A hundred thousand a minute isn’t bad.

I emailed my favorite distributor and told him what I wanted. He told me how all of this would go down. I let him know I understood the program and joined the ranks of hopefuls as the clock ticked toward release day.

On that day, I was between meetings (thankfully) when at 1pm EST the floodgates opened. I was lucky. Not because I got a CE, but because my wife told me to get one. I did NOT have to wait to see gameplay. I simply had to buy it. So I did. about 40 seconds after it went on sale.

Fast forward a few months later and my distro said our game would be shipping in the first batch of CE’s. I received my tracking number from JJP soon afterward and then a notice that it had arrived at the shippers.

I checked Pinside. Nope, no one had received theirs yet and no one had opened one yet. Several folks had received shipping and tracking info but no game in hand. It was time to spring into action. I called the shipper (Estes) and arranged a pickup at their terminal. It’s not far away. I got there early, waited 20 mins for them to get it off a trailer and (in the sleet and rain) loaded it into my pickup to get it home. My game was the first in the nation to be posted as “received” on Pinside – mission accomplished. GnR CE #065 and serial #087530013.

Observations:

It’s hard to review a game that has no peer in pinball today. From the second you plunge the first ball, you are aware that this game in unique and special. When a song starts, you lose all sense of the game of “pinball” you knew and are transported directly to a Guns ‘n Roses concert.

The first time I had the chance to play the song “Live and Let Die”, I cried … yup, got goosebumps and teary eyed right there in middle of the game. Concert goers and music lovers know what I’m talking about. I’m reminded of the Rush concert in Rio de Jeneiro when (at the very beginning of the DVD) the band hits the opening power cords, Neil Peart’s drums explode with sound and they begin to tear into “Tom Sawyer” … the camera pans to the 40,000+ fans and you’ll see guys in the front row shedding tears of joy – THAT’S what I’m talking about. As I type this the memory of that moment is fresh and I “feel” it again. Let me tell you something unequivocally. I’ve never reviewed another pinball game and then so desperately felt that I needed to tell you how it made me feel. No other pinball machine has brought me to tears. I doubt that another every will.

What’s one thing I really enjoy about the game? Well, I play the game to get to hear a song. But get this, I want to hear a song from a band that for most of my life, I had no compelling interest in. Don’t get me wrong I ENJOY the music from GnR, but to put it in perspective, I owned 7,000 plus records (vinyl) and not ONE of them was GnR. I missed most of the 80’s and 90’s music because I was busy raising a young family. I could appreciate GnR, but never sought them out. This game makes all that instantly different. Why? Because these songs are absolutely perfect for a pinball game. These songs are “pure rock-n-roll”. The driving tempo, the bass line and the drums all create an atmosphere around the gameplay that makes me want to “play them”, turn it up as loud as the game can handle and finally play that song well enough to take it to the end. You know what else? I’m liking what I hear. I’m enjoying the songs for what they are – unbelievably good rock music from and unimaginably successful band.

The shots:

In many ways the game is not a “precision” shooter. That makes it a bit easier than others in my collection … and due to the fact that I’m chasing songs – more pleasurable to play. It feels more like if you get the ball in the general area, you’ll qualify the shot (Qualifying band members for example: Dizzy or Frank) BUT … it sometimes shows itself to be otherwise. For example, if you hit the left ramp shot hard but not in the right spot, you’ll likely make the ramp, but you might just barely make it to the small upper playfield flipper to finish the shot to Duff on the bass rails. On the other hand if you hit it exactly right and almost so soft you wonder if the darn thing will move at all … I’ve seen it go all the way to the guitar head lock as fast and smooth as butter. Both orbits behave the same way. Some of my best orbit shots were half flips that entered the orbits just right and made quick and smooth travel around the top of the game. Hit the sweet-spots on these shots and very little “oomph” is needed.

I’m not saying the “game” is easy … the answer to that question will come over time as I better understand the rules and how they tie to each shot. I can tell you that you can’t just flail away while in a song. You’ll need to follow the call outs and make the lit shots as needed in order to not be “booed off the stage”. Some of those shot are harder than others and doing well in a song (while you are mentally jamming out!) is not easy at all. Time will tell where this game lands in the spectrum of “difficulty” – my early take is that the shots needed to have a boatload of fun are makeable and are not super hard. YMMV.

The left ramp is straightforward and scale of 1-10 is a 3 in ease of making it. The right ramp would be the same. The center scoop probably ranks at the same level and (thankfully) presents almost zero rejects. The spinner shot up the center maybe a notch tighter at a 4. Aiming for the post on the record spinner (Slash) is the same. From there the shots get more challenging with the left orbit and upper loop (upper right flipper) being the most difficult for me (probably both are a 9). The right orbit is a tad easier.

The upper playfield simply takes timing on your part. Flip naturally and you’ll be late every time. Almost feels like a slight delay between when you flip physically and when the flipper moves – probably all in my head but that’s what it feels like.

The ramp to the upper playfield can be backhanded rather easily. It also happens to the the side of the game that is easiest to trap up on in game play. That allows you run loops around that ramp by backhanding, trapping and repeating for as long as you are accurate.

The upper right flipper is a nice alternative way of popping the ball into the scoop when you need to start a song or collect a jackpot. Of course, the lower main flippers are more accurate, but I find I can hit the scoop 1 out of 5 tries from the upper flipper – success really depends on ball speed (with slower being better obviously).

Multi-balls are sometimes a little “thick” feeling … I’m not saying that there are too many of them, just that when you’re in some of the MB modes, there are a “lot of balls served at once”. Not too many games give me the feeling that I want to drain a ball so I can hit the remaining with more precision – but there are moments in GnR when that is the case. Overall, I’m pleased with the multi-balls because they add to the emotions and experience of the game and help you achieve objectives you might not otherwise accomplish.

Gameplay

When you get a new Pinball game, most people will ask “how does it play”? It’s an interesting question for GnR because gameplay is only a portion of the answer. For instance, gameplay for the new Stern Avengers is nearly 100% of the answer to that question (and it’s an awesome game). For GnR though you need to consider that the overall “experience” – no other way to say it … the concert experience is clearly a massive part. For me it’s all about the songs. I understand that this is also the honeymoon phase for me, but even when I learn more about the rules and develop my own “attack” strategy, I still think the strength in this game is the live concert experience created when you get to choose and play a song.

I love the addition of the tilt warnings to the playfield and the ability to see the number of tilt warnings you have as each song begins. Helpful stuff and important as your pushing this thing around to keep the ball alive

If you are going to trap up during multi-ball – do so on the left flipper. It’s pretty easy to understand why. All of the balls are served on the right and typically land on the right flipper during autoplunge. You can play for quite a long time just using the right flipper and trapping 2 balls on the left. You can watch my YouTube video below and fast forward to around the 50 second mark where I deployed this exact strategy

Theme Integration

There is probably nothing I can add to what countless others have said about GnR and the game’s ability to re-create a real rock concert. JJP and Slash nailed it. It doesnt matter what song is playing, because when it is, you feel like you’re there. Right at the concert and unbelievably right in the front row. Moving spotlights, RGB hexagon stage lights and the ability to control all 600 LEDs all help cement the feeling that you’re at a concert. The playfield also does a superb job with the lofty challenge of “concert under glass”. There is a stage screen, beautiful sculpts, the drums pops that have a moving cymbol, a real pair of drumsticks, wireforms that look like a bass guitar and the headstock to Slash’s guitar all work together to constantly remind you that you ARE at a concert. These visual cues are critically important to the entire experience and when married with the lights and sound – you’re there. You’re at the show. GnR has got you in their hands mentally, physically and emotionally.

Light Show

Best. Lightshow. Ever.

How do I know? During some of the songs, the RGBW lights are moving/strobing so wildly I lose track of the ball and … I don’t care. I want more. The “show” is way more important than the game. If you enjoy how the game makes you “feel” (and this entire review is about that fact) then you MUST congratulate the following group of fine folks. They coded all those LED’s, they made the game work, they took Slash’s and Eric’s vision and choreographed it into the game that gives you goosebumps. What a job they did. Thanks to the software team of Bill Grupp, Duncan Brown, Joe Katz, JT Harkey, Keith Johnson and Ted Estes. We need to add the Animation team of Jean-Paul de Win and Mark Moliter because it only works as a whole.

RGBW LED color strobing and light patterns coded into the game are stunning to see in person. Literally a concert light show in a box. Understand though, that at times those patterns are created at the expense of white light (especially when red and blue are used during songs)

Those specific colors and patterns can make it challenging to see the ball – especially if you play in dim light as I do. There are also moments when the game gets dark for dramatic effect – not long moments. 5 seconds maybe? Trust me, you’ll hardly notice. You’ll be too busy enjoying the “light show”.

Yea – but what about the sound? Read on because it’s the icing that makes this cake soooooo good.

Sound

What can I say here. It’s phenomenal and I’m understating that by 10 fold. What Vikas Deo and team did on this game to bring the concert experience to life is nothing short of miraculous. It DOES sound like you’re at the concert. It’s plenty loud enough and clean sounding enough to leave me with my ears ringing after a longer game – nuff said

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJgBHCygm2U?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=281]

The call outs are great period. How can they not be, the band did them! And they WANTED to do them! Understanding that the code is not yet complete makes them even more amazing. The adult mode is a must (if you wish to hear it) but be prepared for what you will hear. This is not “gently adult” like some other pinball games. This is “in-your-face” non-stop assault of adult language with plenty of MF’s and “F” words salted through every call out. Listen, most of the time when I hear those words used in discourse I think a little less of the person using them. I try (and fail miserably) to not use those words. So what about my game? In my home? I’ve got it turned ON. To be honest, it somehow fits the game, the theme, the concert emotion. I’m not only glad they coded it with this option, I’m using it and enjoying it. You’ve been warned!

Some of the simple things that the team has coded into the game are just cool every time you hear them. One of those is the “mic drop” off the upper playfield. Took me a minute to understand what it was but … very cool.

Artwork

Dayne Henry is an amazingly talented artist. And a brave man. My college education was as an artist – fine arts to be specific. I’m not sure I would have wanted to tackle artwork for a brand and property as iconic as GnR. Dayne stepped up and simply killed it. There is a LOT of art on the playfield, but at no time does it appear busy or cluttered. It all fits together nicely and in a cohesive way. There is plenty of room made available for inserts and game information and they all fit comfortably into Dayne’s design. Take a moment to look closely at any hand sized section the the CE playfield and you’ll likely see art so finely detailed that it could stand alone as a poster or design element. It’s that good. The middle of the PF shows continents of the world suggestive of the world tour and, of course the worldwide impact that GnR has had on music. Dayne wisely chose to simplify the outlane plastics and apron area (purple and green shapes only) to allow that beautiful playfield art to shine

Arian Buhler re-imagined the Appetite for Destruction album artwork for the CE cabinet art and hit the same home run that Dayne did. It’s amazing in person. The rad-cal shine on top of the brilliant reds and oranges laid out on purple are a feast for the eyes. The standout impact of the rad-cals is the silver foil that peaks through the artwork and makes it come alive. JJP added laser cut armor to for rails and it really compliments the art package well.

Conclusion

It’s draining me. I’m playing it a lot. It’s crazy fun. Every game is an emotional experience. After an hour session I feel like I HAVE been to a concert. I need a bottle of water and a chair.

Reference what I shared throughout this review. This game is like no other. You will FEEL emotions playing this game like no other game you’ve played. You will probably play this game in ways you have not played other games. You’ll have more fun than you’ve had on your other games.

You may not enjoy your other games quite as much as you used to …

A new bar has been set

Congrats and thank you to JJP, Eric and Slash

By now you’ve read the early story of how I found out about and ordered my Stern Avengers Infinity Gauntlet LE. That post tells the story or racing the backroads in the 911 and enjoying some down time in Highlands NC. You can check it out HERE.

I’m writing this review in memory of Andy. He was my best friend and he passed away from MDS exactly 2 years ago today at just 38 years old. I was to lose my Dad from the same exact disease just a few months later. You can read about both of them here on the blog (Andy has a link at the top).

Fast forward to present day and I get the call from my distributor that my AIQ will be shipping soon and they need my cell number so the freight company can call ahead for delivery. Now I’m getting excited. Then, I get another call the same day stating that the Big Buck Hunter HD reloaded video arcade I ordered was getting here the same day!

Just a few minutes after I got the call that AIQ was on the way, I got a message through FB that put a smile on my face. George Gomez decided that I was not as crazy as I appeared to be and took a chance on me. He accepted my friend request 🙂

And, right behind him … the one-of-a-kind artist extraordinaire Jeremy Packer aka Zombie Yeti, the artist on AIQ. Now both of these guys are as humble as they get. I’ve met George at TPF and he was a really down to earth guy. But for us Pinball nerds these guys are celebrities and they were kind enough to accept my request – too cool.

I originally wanted to write about the Avengers Pinball as soon as I got it but with BBH being delivered, let’s just say I was distracted. Well … distracted no more I am (said in best Yoda voice). I’ve got AIQ set up and have played 68 games so far on it and would love to share my early thoughts.

This might take a while.

This pin is “complicated” but in all the right ways.

SHOTS: It’s a flow type shooter. Not really stop and go, until you hit those “moments” – like the Avengers Tower or the Portal. By the time that happens, you’re pretty happy for the break in the action. The shots are mostly open and not difficult at all to hit. The one exception (for me) is the left orbit, but after 20 games or so, even that got easier.

By design, the center right ramp can be hit by EVERY flipper – astounding and according to Keith a fortunate accident. The first time I hit that ramp (Gem collect ramp) with a backhand right flipper, I literally flipped out. I stopped the game and texted my buddy to let him know (he’s getting an LE too) – he quickly replied “it was designed by Keith that way”. Oh, OK … still though – too cool! The upper flipper shot to that same ramp, then connecting to the wireform loop that allows you to “rinse and repeat” is soooooo satisfying. It’s not hard to hit, it’s not hard to repeat (10x+ times) BUT just when you think you could do it forever, boom – you’ll be a fraction of a second late/early and miss it.

The Captain Marvel ramp is easier to hit than you think BUT not consistent in gameplay – and that’s a good thing. Let me explain. When hit squarely and with the proper flipper force, the shot is literally as smooth as butter – and a joy to watch. Not sure I will ever tire of seeing it in action. Here’s the “but” – if you are not square or don’t have enough zip on your flip, your going to see it rise and then fall but come right back out the entrance. The good news is that 90% of the time this is not a fatal error – the ball rarely goes STDM. So shoot away at one of the most unique ramps in pinball history. It’s so cool to watch that I find myself noticing it during multi-ball action – it’s a bit distracting but puts a smile on my face EVERY time!

The Avengers Tower is more unique, more challenging and more game fitting than I thought it would be. I watched the streams like the rest of us and was thinking – why not have it somehow hold all 3 balls? How disappointing is this! Now that I see it implemented with matching game code, I’m impressed with it. The Hawkeye shot challenge is just that – a challenge. The Super Skill shot on a hard plunge makes wonderful use of the tower too and is such a satisfying shot! Plunge hard, ride the wireform all the way to the right flipper and flip right into the tower.

Trapping up seems significantly easier than on other Sterns – maybe it’s me but I find it simple to trap, roll pass, tap pass, etc. on this machine. The shots may be wide open but you will play this game for both score and enjoyment better if you trap and aim vs “spray and pray” (to use an old military term). I think the reason here is there are SO MANY shots! Wow, this is one of the things that makes this game so unique. Left Hulk orbit, then Avengers tower, Sanctum target, Strange disc, Pops lane (right of disc), left center ramp, right center ramp, Hawkeye shot, Captain Marvel ramp, Thor captive ball, right Black Panther orbit, right Pym Labs Mystery VUK – then the entire drop target “bingo” section. The shots seem endless on this machine and that takes me to …

Multi-ball madness. As discussed above there are a LOT of available shots in this game. Kick off a multi-ball and then take your time to make a few of these wireform shots near simultaneously – it’s Pinball magic. If you pull this off, you can literally see as many as 4 (or more) pinballs traveling on wireforms, in common and opposing directions at THE SAME TIME. It’s like being right there in the Infinity Gauntlet fight with Adam Warlock and the Avengers – battling Thanos to save the universe.

DRAINS: I first wrote this as remembering that I was having VERY few center drains (other than during multi-ball). This makes it feel like the pin is fair to the player. So why are my scores still under 200MM? Because … I’m an average player and the side drains are functioning just fine thank you. Since penning that thought I ran back up to the Loft to check the audits. Wow, no wonder eyewitness testimony is suspect! Drain counts: 53 Left, 117 Center and 38 Right. So much for a STDM friendly game. Seriously – this game does NOT feel like a drain monster – and especially not so in the center no matter what the numbers say.

ARTWORK: Zombie Yeti (Jeremy Packer) drilled the art on this machine. It just “feels like” the comics that it derives it’s story from. It’s colorful, beautiful and transports you back to younger less care filled days of reading comics and feeling like you were “right there” with Hulk and the gang- just as worried about the Black Dwarf as they were. If only life was as simple now as then. But that says something about this game – that it can make you forget the troubles of the day and be younger more carefree version of yourself if even for just 15 minutes or so

VIDEO GRAPHICS: They are fantastic. Totally matches the comics look that this machine pays homage to. The colors are wonderfully saturated in places like the killer rendition of the Dr. Strange logo and more subtle where called on to be that way. They are generally rendered simply with little animation and I think it fits the theme just perfectly. Nice work Chuck Ernst and Joshua Clay.

LIGHTING: Enough to play. I would not call it dark but I would not give it credit for “Pinstadium” bright either. It’s OK as is but I added rail lighting to mine and prefer it that way. I play with just LED background lights on and appreciate the extra lighting. The ball trough lighting that lights up the flipper area is a nice touch. Pinball players never like to drain. I think I die a little each time it happens but the light show at the end of each ball is pretty cool on AIQ – it’s a great use of the RGB LEDs to flash them all red white and blue – ‘Merica

TOYS: Not sure there is something in the game to call a “toy”. The Avengers tower is functional, fun and a unique addition to the gameplay via physical locking and code integration. The Portal and integrated spinning disc is a cool way to “go interdimensional” but the subway seems to just slow things down unnecessarily. The subway is also hard to “see into” and given the fact that it has a transparent window, I’m sure the intent was to see the balls. Unfortunately, you can’t see the balls unless you’re 7 feet tall. It’s a small issue but worth sharing.

CALL OUTS: Call outs are pretty good overall. These were Marvel blessed voice actors so I expected a great results. The code is still young so there are spots where callouts are missing or more could be added but according to Keith, those will come soon enough.

SOUND: I really like the sounds – Nice job Jerry Thompson. It’s all very Super Hero like and fits the theme to a “T”. Jerry has done sound for several of the games in my collection – Ghostbusters, Jurassic Park and Batman 66 and I love the sound packages on those machines as well. The sound is “packaged”, tight and focused on the aura of the pin it’s dedicated to. Jerry’s got skills.

GAME THOUGHTS: I love it. It’s so unique. I’ve been texting a few friends back and forth and it’s been difficult to describe what it’s like playing it so I’ll just share some stream-of-thought:

Flying. Yes, flying … I read comics as a kid but not many Marvel ones. I bought the Infinity Gauntlet series by Jim Starlin to familiarize myself with the story and read all 6 volumes. After reading that and playing the game, I get the sense that I’m moving when I play. I know that sounds strange but others on Pinside (as crazy as me) have said the same. I’m not sure why. Maybe because the battles in the comics have these guys flying ALL the time. Maybe because in the Pinball a “battle” must (in my mind) include flying. Maybe it’s the insane amount of vertical and horizontal ball travel that happens in the machine. In multi-ball, you literally can see (all at once) 4 + balls flying in various directions on various wireforms – it’s both thrilling and disorienting at the same time – and I’ve never experienced another game like it

Losing a Gem to Thanos makes me want to cry. It’s a “too serious” moment in a Pinball machine based on comics BUT when you read the comic that Jim Starlin wrote, you will understand why the game has a serious bias and less humor than the “movies” – that is how he wrote it. It was the potential end of the universe and that’s about as serious as it gets!

Acquiring a Gem feels like an accomplishment. Not “I just saved the world” level but pretty close. If you are a top tier player, I suspect you won’t get the same feeling but for us “mortals of pinball” every gem earned is big.

And .. just like in Jurassic Park, Raymond Davidson has provided a very cool way to both “practice” for regular gameplay and to have a boatload of fun doing it – the “Battle Royale” mode. You simply hold both flippers in before you push “start” and you’ll be given a menu that allows you to pick the mode. Here you will battle the Black Order using all 6 Avengers and do so in a timed fashion. It’s a fantastic way to hone your shots for standard gameplay – bravo!

Stern’s Avengers Infinity Quest is a keeper for me. It’s like having the most colorful, living comic book in your house – and as a bonus you can “play it” too! It’s not a “kids story” here though. The original storyline by Jim Starlin was written for adults as most comics are/were and as such biases toward the serious side – just the way I like it. Makes it feel a little risky when you push start and begin to “fly around” the inside of that machine.

Things could get rough in there – Avengers Assemble!

John Hammond needed Nedry. NOW! It was about to hit the fan and he had no idea what Dennis Nedry was up to. In a way, I want him too. I want a Stern Jurassic Park pinball machine – now.

So – it’s time to sell some games … and that’s saying something because it is RARE that I ever sell a game. Up until recently, the grand total of all games I have ever sold was 3. Out of 45 total purchased, I had sold only 3.
That all changed a few Sunday’s ago when I began to feel even more keenly how challenging it is to keep older games running well – or probably more accurate – keeping 40 games of all ages running well. To reduce my time spent maintaining and fixing games, I put 3 out of my collection up for sale. It quickly spiraled to me selling 6 in about 48 hours!

I listed Cactus Jack’s, Twin Win and my Atari Middle Earth for sale on the multitude of Facebook groups that do those kinds of things. The gentleman that quickly bought my Middle Earth and Twin Win is someone I know and he asked if I had any others I might consider selling.

Readers might know that I keep about 40 games up in the Pinball Loft and the overflow of project games stored in a secured but seperate outbuilding. When the buyer asked about other games, I remembered that I had a Williams Post Time and a Big Strike in storage. The Post Time was a nice EM in good working condition. The Big Strike on the other hand was simply a project machine that would light up when plugged in but needed a ton of work to function. I bundled those as a package deal and offered the buyer my best price if he took them both – he did

Interestingly, the machine that was the rarest (1,900 made) and most desirable (Cactus Jack’s) did not sell immediately. It was a real nice example that I had put a lot of work into getting both beautiful and playable. I bought the game locally from a co-worker and quickly put over $700 in parts into it. I added new legs, a new ramp, new flipper bats, cactus decals, LEDs, lithium battery holder, apron cards, drop targets/decals, rubbers and I’m sure a bunch more. The new parts were the easy part. The real investment was time. I rebuilt the drop target mechs, rebuilt the entire upper playfield with lexan, fixed the head lock mechanism, polished the playfield mylar, touch up some ball drop wear, washed and vacuumed the cainet and on and on …. In the end the game was not perfect by any means but it WAS a nice machine nonetheless. The interest and positive comments on the social media sites was high, but no one stepped up with the money or a commitment. Until late that evening.

I got a notification from FaceBook Messenger from an out of state collector stating he wanted the machine. No questions asked, just “is it still available?” I told him yes it was, BUT before he drove to come get it, I wanted to let him know all that was good and bad about the machine. I shared the issues with him and then sent him some more videos and pictures showing inside the backbox and actual game play. Satisfied that this was the game he wanted, he asked if I could hold it. Not a problem for me as I did not really need the space immediately. He sent the deposit via PayPal and we made arrangements to meet the following week.

At the same time this was going on, I got another FaceBook message from a local guy asking how he could pay for the Middle Earth machine. He was local and he wanted it. Hated to message him back to let him know that it was already (just) sold. I raced over to the listing page and marked it as such. While doing that I got an additional message from him asking about the Williams Space Mission EM that could be seen in the Atari Middle Earth photos. I told him it “might” be for sale. After a few emails back and forth I discovered he was a local that had just moved here and was connected to a few folks that I already knew. Couple of FB messenger chats later and I invited him over to see the game and play a few others.

A few nights later, the gentleman that bought the Twin Win and Middle Earth stopped by to pick up his games. When we closed the deal on the Twin Win and Middle Earth he asked if I might have any other “project” games I wanted to sell. In fact, I did have 4 or 5 stored in my pole barn and I offered him the Big Strike and Post Time titles to him as a combo deal – he agreed to take those as well. We used my Escalera to move the 2 machines out of the Loft and then drove over to the pole barn to load the others. He was loaded and gone in under 2 hours

I climbed the steps to the Loft to clean up and put my tools and packing materials away. It was strange to see the “blank spot” along the wall where 2 games used to be … I had to console myself with the thought that soon enough a new Jurassic Park Premium would occupy at least one of the spots.

Well – that escalated fast. I planned to sell 3 games and had already sold 5! At that point in time 4 were already loaded and gone. The only game that remained was Cactus Jack’s and I had a deposit on that machine as well. It took a bit to finally nail down a pick up date. The buyer and I had to work out a common and convenient time and at first struggled a bit to do so. I found out later why. He was driving 7 hours to get here! No matter, we settled on a Sunday evening at the end of the following week. True to his word, he pulled into the ranch right on time! We spent a few minutes getting to know each other and discussing his pinball journey as well as mine. We played a few games (he had a nice 51MM game on Metallica) and started the process of packing Cactus Jack’s for transport. 5 minutes on the Escalera and the machine was safely out of the Loft and slid into his vehicle. He shared that he was now headed to North Carolina to pick up a Twilight Zone before turning north to head home for the 7 hour drive. I handed him a bottled water for the road, thanked him and wish him luck with the new games and he was on his way.

All the while this was going on I was hot and heavy on the Pinside threads surrounding the Stern Jurassic Park game. I wanted to learn as much as I could about the game if I was to order one. My FIRST concern was quality. Playfield quality to be exact. I had just had a terrible experience with Stern Pinball on a KISS Premium machine I had purchased new a few years ago. It game with ghosting inserts that turned into cracked clear coat within 250 plays. I worked with my distributor (who, in turn worked with Stern) over the rediculously long time period of over 2 years, only to be told I would not get a populated playfield to replace my damaged one. You Pinball collectors know what that means … Stern was willing to send me a new playfield but it would be barren. It would be up to me to “do the swap”. Now I’m quite capable of doing this but, come on Stern. A playfield swap is 25 hours or more of work that I don’t need. When I received Stern’s “final answer” on the KISS playfield I was so angry that I had basically sworn off any NIB Pinball purchases on a go forward basis – then I saw Jurassic Park.

I spent hours pouring through more than 70 pages on the JP Premium/LE thread on Pinside. Within a few minutes it was clear that (at least early on) there WAS an issue with playfield quality. I found pictures of rippled clear coats where factory installed posts had pressured the soft clear. I saw images of chipped clear near posts and in some cases where that chipped clear had removed some of the artwork. Dissapointed and concerned … I read on. The good news is that as I moved forward in the thread (newer posts) the problem began to go away. Newer built machines had fewer issues. As I neared the end of the thread, it looked like all of the playfield issues had been resolved.

At this point I’m going to weigh in on the clear coat issue. Not many people can share opinions on this with authority. I can. I’m not an expert but I HAVE clear coated a playfield. I did the playfield on my Bride of Pinbot. I used a professional quaility 2 part (2 pac) clear coat, sprayed through a HVLP gun (High Volume, Low Pressure) hooked to a compressor in a dedicated spray booth (while wearing a hazmat suit and breathing apparatus). I sprayed several coats and finished the playfield with an air sander and then buffing wheels/polishing agents of various grits. It came out looking like glass. You know what? After 2-300 games, it STILL looks the same. No dimples, no chipping, no pooling/rippling – at all. The issues being experienced today MUST have something to do with the chemical composition or mix of the clear.

I have Stern machines that have heavy dimpling where the clear coat is the same thickness as the layers I put down on my BOP. It is very clear that the “dimpling” is in the clear and not the wood. That tells me it’s too soft. I don’t know why, but it is. This has proven to be one of the things that Stern discovered in their work to fix the issue. They simply put less clear coat on the playfield. Less clear coat equals less dimples. This still does not address that issue of why the clear used by their vendor is so “soft”. Hey at the end of the day, it looks like the clear on the newest games is staying put, has less dimpling and pooling so guess what? Time to call my distro and order one.

I zipped off an email to my distributor and got a quick response that they would be “back on the production line” in late February. I asked about sending a deposit or the whole amount and was told to send the full payment and that by the time the check was cleared the machines would likely be made. I got that done the very next day and let him know the “check was in the mail” (I always take a photo and send it along via email). Now there was nothing left to do but wait … or was there?

OK … there were a LOT of things to do before the game arrived! In fact, you probably know by now that I’m a obsessive “modder” when it comes to pinball. It doesn’t stop with modding either. I like to compliment my machines with autographed objects, artwork and even life size replicas of associated characters if available. In the case of Jurassic Park, I went right to Pinside and started researching the “must have” mods for this new game. I did not take long to blow a grand.

Jurassic Park PB Mods:
$130 – Ulek store (3D molded directional signs)
$200 – Mezel Mods (Raptor pen mod, Fossil signs)
$120 – Pinball Life (Shaker motor, upgraded coil stops)
$370 – Robert Stone (Orange powder coating)
$40 – Pinnovators (Subwoofer cable and circuit)
$120 – Amazon (Polk 10″ powered subwoofer)
$90 – Pingraffix (Interior side art blades)
$175 – American Pinball (Magic Glass)
$57 – Titan rubber kit (Clear rubbers, playfield color matched tapered posts)
$1,300 Grand Total

Over the course of the next 2 weeks the porch filled up with boxes from Pinball Life, Mezel Mods, Titan and others. I hauled the booty up to the Loft and stacked it in the store room until my game arrived. One of the very first things I ordered was a set of powder coated armor. Robert Stone does fantastic work and he was an easy choice. When I asked him how the process worked, he shared that you pay for the powder coating and he ships the parts when completed. Once you have the original parts removed, you ship those back to him. It’s an honor system that works well for the most part BUT can get wonky if there are delays (on the customer end). Almost exactly 2 weeks later I got a message from Robert that my powder coating was done. Wow – that was fast … too fast actually. I didnt even have confirm that my game was shipped yet! I started to worry that I would be one of “those customers” that does not return the original armor that Robert needs to complete the next job for the next customer. The message went on to say that he had posted pics of my finished powder coated armor in his Pinside thread “Let me powder coat your game”. I went there to check it out and was blown away. I couldn’t wait to see that orange on my game! The 3 artwork styles that the Pro, Premium and LE version present offer enough variety to warrant a unique powder coat color choice for each. The premium has an orange sky on each side driven from the sunset scene it depicts. The Prismatic brand Illusion Orange Cherry with gold flakes in the clear coat was a perfect match. It would be a while before I had my game in hand to make the swap … at least that’s what I thought.

I spent many hours researching mods, checking out the gallery images in the 2 major threads about the game on Pinside. All of that time paled in comparison to the time I spent searching Ebay for the perfect “non-Pinball” compliment item. I looked for life sized dinosaurs, wall art and tons of autographed Jurassic Park items. I wanted something HUGE or at least something with enough presence that it would be the correct scale when sitting on a floor sized display pedestal. I was about to give up when I found a Wayne Knight (Nedry in the film) autographed Jurassic Park orange safety helmet! It was perfect. It had a plastic IGen identification badge and, importantly came with a custom Lucite stand with the JP logo engraved in the bottom. I was thrilled and quickly made an offer. After a (just as fast) counteroffer, I accepted and within a few days the well packed box arrived. It was AFTER I had purchased the item that I realized just how aligned that kind of item was to the game. During my search I had considered many autographed items. Stuff from Laura Dern, stuff from Sam Neill and others but just couldn’t fall in love with it – some due to size, others due to (insane) pricing. The revelation came when I was listening to a podcast about the game where it was mentioned the ONLY reference to any specific film character in the entire machine was Wayne Knights character – Nedry. It was accidental, but I had bought the one thing that made the most sense to place near the game!

Then, I waited …
Then waited some more …
Before I knew it, the end of February came and I was hopeful, but waiting …

I left for a business trip to Arizona for a few days. The day I left I got to the airport early to find a pretty sizable line formed already. As I approached ticketing I reached for my license … it was gone. Not to be found. Anywhere. OMG. I’m going to Arizona to speak to 200+ people and they are expecting me. I have GOT to get to this meeting! I pulled out my TN Handgun Permit – the only other form of ID that has my image on it. I showed it to the ticket agent and asked if that would get me through security. He said sure – no problem. Then he asked if I had a firearm … to which I answered “no” (wondering why he asked). He was correct. I got to through security using that ID, but what he failed to tell me was that I was going to go to the front of the security line for “enhanced” screening. They tore my bags apart, they used the explosives residue wipes on every little thing. They hand screened me (OK rubbed me all over). Then they let me through security. When I landed in AZ, I began to worry (a lot) that I might not get home so easily. I was not so sure that AZ would agree that a TN Handgun Permit was an OK form of ID – I checked the TSA website and they do NOT accept permits so I had a good reason for concern. I was also scheduled for minor surgery the very next morning of my return so I really needed to get home on time. I contacted our company event planner. She is amazing and a friend. I asked if there were any seats left on the 2 company jets that were returning to Knoxville that Wednesday. Turns out there was ONE and she gabbed it for me. I’m forever grateful.

When I arrived home, I noticed a large and long box on the porch. That could only mean one thing – my armor had arrived from Robert. Now the race was on. He expected me to swap that newly powder coated armor with the original and then ship the original back to him. I was worried. I still did not have my game or a ship date.

I had my surgery the next day. Sitting around recovering stinks so I shot an email off to my distributor. Any updates? I asked … He quickly got back with YES! The game had shipped 3 days ago and was on the way! The next day I got a call from the shipping company asking if it would be “OK” to deliver on the coming Friday. Heck yea! Bring it on …

Friday came and the freight driver called sometime just before lunch and got here about 20 minutes later. I was just finishing up some work when he pulled in to the gate. I had him bring the game to the pole barn because the new house is not “turn-around” friendly for a straight truck or semi. We met out at the barn and I asked if he could unload directly into the Ranger. He said sure and he did. Easy as pie.

Now … getting that game OFF the Ranger was a little more challenging. I could not lift due to surgery so my daughter (who clearly thinks I’m certifiable for being so deep in this hobby) was kind enough to help me. We backed up to the front porch and tipped the machine so that the pallet made contact with the steps, from there is was pretty simple. Escalera to the stairs and then up we went – box and all. That turned out to be a bigger challenge than I anticipated. The box is a LOT bigger than the machine. We made the corner at the bottom but could not turn at the top. Had the pulled the Escalera out and then tip the box on the “truck this side only” side onto the floor and drag it up the last step. From now on all NIB get the “B” in NIB removed before going into the Loft!

Next steps were to cut the box, add the front legs, use my pinball lift to add the back legs, then go to town modding the heck out of it before playing a single game.

I got all the armor swapped without incident. It was stunning to see in person. Just beautiful.

Next up was the shaker motor – 10 minute install max. No issues

Next was the Pinnovators (one of my favs) subwoofer output kits. Takes about 15 minutes if you go slow and carefully strap tie all parts. I take time to do that so an inadvertent tug on the sub cable does not rip components out of your circuit boards in the head.

Next I added the Mezel Mods signage. Super simple with only the upper right ramp causing a slow down because you need to first remove the plastic Stern Pteranodon piece to install the new sign. Two nuts and it comes right off and into the coin box it went.

Time to add the Pingraffix side art to the inside of the cabinet. I first place the playfield upright. Then slide the decals down without getting them stuck to the cabinet side. You can do that by making a “V” out of them as you slide them down into the narrow crack between the playfield and the cabinet side. Then pull the ends of your “V” back toward the cabinet and get a rough placement. Don’t stick them hard yet. Go to the other side of the cabinet and check your alignment. Once they are aligned you can work the decal to make it stick. I install these dry with no issues. Some trimming is needed up near the flipper buttons around the washers that Stern uses to secure the Pal nuts that hold the flipper button housing in place. Use a sharp knife but know that these trimmed areas can’t be seen above the playfield anyway.

I still had quite a few “sign posts” to install from the Ulek store. These were very easy to install as they had a plexi base already affixed with a hole drilled to correspond to many threaded posts in the game. There are a half dozen good places to locate these and I used some imagery from Pinside to mimic placement. These are 3D and look super installed.

I saved the Mezel Mods “Raptor Pen” install for the end thinking it might be challenging. It was not. It took a few minutes but was very straightforward. Pull the 3M tape covering, and stick each half to the top of the Stern plastics. Be careful to locate the domes that allow flashers to shine through in the correct orientation. The piece on the right is sensitive to the washer that is installed on the wireform hold down nut – center that washer first, then install the right side piece. Following the pen sculpt install, you’ll need to add the wire. There is only one piece supplied and you can cut it exactly in half to create 2 wires around the pen. Go slow and don’t force the wire or you may break part of the sculpt. Once complete, nip the ends toward the back off using you wire cutters. Finally hang the 10,000 volt sign wherever you wish on the pen. It looks fantastic and the only issue I see is getting under it when maintenance might be required. That just means you’ll pull the parts and either re-use the 3M tape or place some new. Tired from the day (and the anti-biotics I was on) I called it quits for the night.

I started fresh the next morning by spending a little over 2 hours swapping all the black rubber for Titan clear rubber. Most of the swap was easy but of note for you all attempting this the back plastic behind the pops needs to come off to get to the 2 rubbers on the star posts back there. That was tricky and involved loosening the spiral wireform to remove the left pop cap. Then the plastic could be removed by bending it and pulling toward the backboard of the machine. Be careful or you’ll remove art from the plastic as it slips over the threaded post. The ONLY rubber I could not switch out was behind the right metal ramp that feeds the spiral wireform. When/if I ever need to remove that ramp, I’ll make that swap. You can BARELY see them anyway.

I had ordered 3 colors of Titan flipper rubber to test. Red, Blue and Green. I settled on green and installed those next – 5 minutes max. I had also ordered a complete set of Titan slim tapered (Stern style) post sleeves. I wanted to color match the playfield to the sleeves. I ended up using green at the T-Rex, Blue at the Jeep and Pteranodon ramps and left the black at the upper flipper and raptor pen area. Black at the upper flipper looked great and the black at the raptor pen was out of prudence … it looked like a major pain to get to those sleeves!

Finally … I popped open the box from American pinball that contained my fresh sheet of Magic Glass and slid that in to replace the stock tempered version. It looked amazing! Time to play!!

Chris and I played a few games and really enjoyed it. My daughter even popped in for 2 games. My wife showed no interest in the theme even when invited to the inaugural game. She loves her WOZ, Aerosmith and KISS and is super excited about the new GnR but Jurassic? Not so much. So we played several 3 person games and had a bunch of fun. Here’s why.

• The original score music is just awesome. It’s one of the things that ties the entire game back to the movie series
• The JP logos that are everywhere help to do the same thing
• The sound quality is better than I expected. It plays loud and clean. The Helicopter adds to the package, a subwoofer is a must.
• The T-Rex roar at 30 volume (or higher) is just sweet. You can feel it due to the shaker and the subwoofer combo – very movie-like!
• The artwork is really nice. Johnny Crap did an awesome job. Colors on the Premium Edition are beautiful – love the orange!
• Escape Nublar Challenge is a blast to play. What a unique way to add another dimension to the game
• The shots … OMG the shots. They are … challenging, incredibly fast at times, incredibly satisfying to hit in combos, incredibly diverse and varied, incredibly tight in some areas, incredibly smooth in the wireforms, incredibly unique – did I say incredible?

We finished a few games and called it a night. I went back to the Loft later that evening to have a few more games on my own. When playing I notice 2 things that did not “seem right”. First the left apron “art triangle” was not lit up like the right one was. Second, there were times where I would get a ball added to my ball in play. Most times during ball launch, right around the time the ball passed the helicopter blades. I pulled the playfield out to see if the LED board had a broken wire or something obvious that would cause it not to light up. I traced the power supply wires to a “Z” connector and quickly spotted the problem. Whoever assembled the machine had missed one of the connectors on the “Z” by one wire. I unplugged it and plugged it back in correctly. One issue solved. Too tired to investigate the extra ball being added to game play, I headed off to bed to worry about that the next day

With a fresh mind, I went back to the machine and watched the screen as I launched the first ball. Sure enough, almost instantly, another ball was launched into play. This time I spotted the screen saying “Ball Save”. Aha! Has to be an opto in the ball trough or an outlane switch. I went to Pinside to post for some help. The response I got mirrored my suspicions. So, I placed the machine in switch test and tested the left and right outlanes. Sure enough, the NEDRY (of course – trouble maker) right outlane switch was poorly adjusted and was not fully opening. Thus it was randomly telling the machine that a ball had just passed over it and (if within the allotted ball save time) to serve another one! 2 minutes to adjust and the game was back to full strength!

Final verdict? Too soon to tell. Read the laundry list of positive comments above. I clearly like the game. I may even love it. It’s a blast to play. It keeps you on edge with the music and non-stop action. The only thing to slow the game down is the T-Rex modes and the Raptor Pen. It’s fast and fun!

I’m only a casual Jurassic Park fan. Dino’s are cool no matter what but I was busy raising a family and building a career when the first movie came out and didn’t even see it until years later. I don’t have the nostalgia for the franchise that others might. Still … I like the movies. Actually really enjoy them. But the lack of theme integration or “imperfect” call-outs that others bang this game for are not an issue for me. Will I fall in love with it? Maybe, you know that Pinball “always finds a way …”

The story behind the game starts with a trip to get a Gottlieb Gold Wings. Yup, Gold Wings. When I arrived to see the game in person, the Gold Wings was misbehaving a bunch. There was a power supply issue related to a bad solder joint causing mid-game resets and flippers that wouldn’t allow the ball to make the ramp. I was disappointed because I really wanted a copy of that title but the price along with it’s condition took it off my list. 

When I asked the seller if he had any other Pinballs he said that he had just picked up 2 more and they were still in his truck. A minute later we were standing outside behind his pickup in a very brisk January breeze. Brrrr. He pulled back a blanket to reveal a well worn Williams Jokerz. I knew that this was not a highly desirable system 11 but I loved the artwork and enjoyed playing it when I saw it at shows, etc. John Youssi (the artist) lives in my home state of Tennessee and I simply love his work.

The seller shared that the guy he bought it from said he could not get it to boot and that he had purchased a replacement transformer for it but had second thoughts about tackling that level of work on the game – so he sold it. I got to see just the center of the playfield and that looked “OK” at best. The cabinet on the left side had literally been carved into by either a child or someone acting as one. I was also able to see that the head had some structural issues and would need some glue and cabinet clamps to correct. I also noticed that the backglass was cracked (not tempered) and the translight was significantly faded.

I asked the seller what he wanted for the Jokerz and he shared a price that put it right at “market” – this was not a “market” condition game but I asked him to let me know when/if he got it to boot and I would think about it. I got a call a few days later that he had the Jokerz up, working and had played it. I could stop back and see it anytime. He reaffirmed the price and backed it up by sharing some of the new parts he had on order but had not installed yet. He had ordered  a new upper playfield, rubber kit, lift channel, and a tempered back glass and would give me all those parts if we agreed on a deal. So I drove back to see the game and …  the game was stripped! I mean like down to the bare playfield stripped. All the parts/ramps/plastics were in a box. Ugh. Not his fault at all. I had not committed to buy and he was marching along doing what he does to prep the game for sale. So … I couldn’t play it. I looked over the rest of the game good as this was my first real chance.

The “other” side of the cabinet was just as bad as the “carved side”. The Mylar was lifting in places and would need to be surgically trimmed. The translight was that in name only as most of the ink took a permanent vacation. The legs were painted blue and scratched. Many of the plastics were cracked. The playfield glass was a scratched mess (aren’t they all?) and It started in “adjust failure” mode.  On closer inspection I saw significant corrosion on the top connector of the on-board battery box (nothing below it thank God).

No matter, blinded by the drug called Pinball, I took his word that it actually worked and made an offer. We came together on the price and started to prep the game for transport. First order of business for me was to “check the ramps”.  I never saw them in the game. Never got to check for cracks or broken mounting tabs, etc. When I pulled the first one out of the box my heart sank. It was missing large chunks from both left and right. The left ramp was worse. Now what. This was not going to work. But wait. What do I see, she’s walking back to me .. sorry, that’s a song. What I saw was ANOTHER Jokerz sitting 3 feet from me. I walked over and in 2 seconds saw that all 3 ramps were in very good condition. I asked that he swap ramps as part of the deal. He’s a great guy and agreed on the spot. We grabbed some tools and traded out all 3 ramps before I left.

Time to fold the head and get this project machine loaded, but wait. How do you fold the head and secure the speaker panel and the light panel when there is no backglass (it was cracked remember). Easy, unplug the entire speaker panel and shove some small blankets into the head to hold the light panel from flopping around in transit.  

This Weathers’s a Joke.

Time to load it – boy it looks cloudy all of the sudden. I quickly check the weather report again – nope, no rain predicted for today. But by now you know my track record on hauling pins. If I buy one – it rains. Every time. I get it loaded say goodbye and hit the road. I’m halfway in the middle of nowhere. It’s dark and I have NOT put a tarp over the game. Why? Because I checked the weather and it’s not supposed to rain- that’s why. It starts to sprinkle almost to the second I pull out of the driveway. Within 5 minutes it’s light rain. In 20 minutes I am forced to stop in I-40 in heavy traffic to pull out my tarp and cover the game or risk water damage. I stopped, covered the game and moved on toward home. I made it home dry and safe but had no one to help unload the game.

It was a weekday and I usually only have someone that can help on the weekends. So I tried to unload the game alone. Don’t do that. Getting it to the edge of the tailgate, adding the front legs is a breeze. the next steps are all danger and risk. I pulled the front of the game with the legs now installed off the tailgate. It was then that I noticed the distance from the bottom of the legs to the concrete was “too far” – in other words the game would be sitting at roughly a 45 degree angle and would in all likelihood, simply slide onto the ground and break in a million Jokerz pieces. so I pushed it back on the truck. Then I had the bright idea to put a large flat top wood pallet under those front legs. I repeated the “pull it off the truck” step and sure enough, I was able to reach the pallet with the front legs and not have the game crash. I was so excited! Maybe I had discovered the new “one-man-can-unload-a-pinball-alone” technique that no one else had ever thought of. Not so much. After a minute I came to the simple conclusion – now what? I could no longer put it back on the truck and I could not take it the rest of the way off. Fortunately I heard my daughter approaching on her way to the barn. “What’cha doin'” is her common greeting. Oh – trying to kill myself, why? She knew the drill and asked if she could help. In 30 seconds we had it off the truck and safely on 4 legs.

It was late and I had time to only do one thing to the game before heading into the house. I settled on a shotgun repair of the corroded battery terminal. The top pad was completely gone due to acid and needed something to restore continuity to the through hole behind it. I grabbed a tiny screw and inserted it into the rivet hole that was now corroded away. The head of the screw now made good contact with the battery and the threads of the screw created continuity to the pin from the through hole. I turned the game on and was deflated to find the same message on the DMD – “adjust failure”. Then I remembered that you needed to factory reset these games, then power cycle, then start again. It worked. I now had a game that would hold menu settings as I worked on it in the coming weeks. 

Pieces and Parts

Tonight was inventory night. You can’t restore a machine without parts. In many cases you can’t even start without parts. So I needed to know what I needed. My problem though was that most of my existing parts are in a box. So the process of taking an inventory was just that much more complicated. The existing star posts were a mess. Cracked, faded and covered in 20 years of wax. They needed to go. So I took a star posts count – but wait, some of the ones I have are 1 and 1/16″ inch and other ones  1 and 3/16″. I took an internet trip to the Marco website to confirm these 2 heights exist – they do. I order 35 pieces as it looks like the game requires 34. I ordered the taller ones first only to discover that these had been added by an operator and (best as I can tell) were not the correct height. Fortunately I had  stock on hand of the correct height posts. I stock lots of LED’s but do I have what I need for this game? Turns out, no. So insert by insert I review each and attempt to color match – The Red looking inserts (from the top) are actually orange when I shine my flashlight through the bottom – that throws me off a bit- There are 25 total bulbs under the playfield and I’ve attached my color matching LED plan here because there is very little info out there about this game surrounding LED’s- There is only ONE red insert (arrow right) The drops are sticky on 2 of the 3 banks so I ordered new springs all the way around (9 total) and ordered new drops and decals as well.

Now I turn my attention to the main ramp. This is the one that my seller swapped for me. It’s in great shape BUT the deflectors that are on the end of it (to corral the ball when it jumps up the red ramp) are incorrect. These deflectors are created in left and right pairs. They are not interchangeable. My problem? I have 2 of the right deflectors and zero of the left. Looking at the ramp straight on, the left deflector is not longer protecting the ramp and guiding the ball – it’s actually capturing the ball and shoving it right into the unprotected left edge of the ramp. And … it’s riveted on there. That means this game was on route and played that way from some time. I’m shocked that the left edge of the center ramp is not destroyed. Using my welding pliers, a sheet metal brake and a handheld torch, I created a lefty deflector by bending it 180 degrees on 2 of the angles. Works like a charm.  

Icky Upper

There’s a thread on Pinside about the worst hacks you’ve seen. This one doesn’t make the all time hits list but the installation of a 12 volt fan to keep an overheating transformer cool is pretty “hacky”. I removed the cobbled up fan and moved on to the most challenging part of the Jokerz transformation. It was time to swap the upper playfield. Wow. Not easy. Getting started was actually easy because the upper playfield was already pulled from the game and the new one was sitting in a box.

How hard could it be to simply drill out the rivets, swap the decals and light boards, re-rivet the switches and be done? Turns out – harder than you think. First the easy parts. I removed the 4 flashers on the back side of the upper playfield – just 4 screws. Then the light boards. The rear one has 2 nylock nuts and the front one has 3. Now I’m left with just the switch array – and THAT is riveted to the playfield.

I reviewed the thread on Pinside on how to do the swap and it recommended a 1/8″ drill bit to drill out the rivets. That size did not remove enough material to easily separate the rivets so I moved up to a 9/32″ bit. You’ll need to be a little more careful that you don’t drill out any of your switch plate but I was able to do it no problem. Now the entire wire harness is free and can be set aside. Next I unscrewed all of the various posts that are attached. Now onto the 2 decals that need to be removed. I ran a large sink full of hot soapy water and let the playfield soak for about 5 minutes in the hot water. I removed the playfield and cut off the 2 tall plastic screw standoffs on the rear so they did not interfere with pulling the large decal off the bottom.

Then I carefully began the pull the large decal. slow and steady and adding hot soapy water under it as I went. It came off without any damage at all. I repeated the process for the rear decal. That one was a little “stickier” but I managed to remove and save it as well. Hint: leave the wire loom retainer (gray thingy) on the bottom of the decal. If you try to remove it, you may damage the decal … and you will need it anyway to hold your wires.

Now I needed to removed the small amount of glue residue that stayed behind on both decals. Goo Gone is perfect for this. Spray. Wait 2 minutes. Use a dry soft rag to rub off the glue. Even a small amount of this kind of adhesive is a pain to get off, but stay after it and eventually it will be free of glue.  Finally, it was time to re-assemble my upper playfield. I laid my cleaned decal in place on the bottom and began the process of riveting the switch array back in place. First, I had to choose a rivet size. The Pinside thread (and original Williams specs) recommends a 1/8″ by 7/32″ long rivet. I tried those and they were just too short to properly crimp so I moved up one length to 5/16″ and they worked much better. Remember, if you have to squeeze or crush the rivet any amount past “firmly”, then the rivet is too short or too long. I was able to use my hand rivet tool to address all but 3 of the total 10 rivets needed. For the remaining 3, I used a low profile screw (I ground the head down) and a nut with blue Loctite. CAUTION when adding Loctite so close to the edge of that decal … just a small drop “too much” of the Loctite can very quickly “wick” up and under that decal. Ask me how I know. Ask me how hard it is to clean out blue Loctite from that decal when half the switches are already riveted on. I used a wooden stick based “Q-tip” that I use for detail work on my guns but it still was not easy. Live and learn. I got them all done and they are all nicely attached. Yay!

I had ordered new red mini posts as well and the final steps to re-building my upper playfield required that I re-populate all those posts. The red mini’s are easy and were done in just a few minutes. Then I remembered a post on Pinside where someone had modified the post types to make it easier and more reliable long term. I followed the same instructions. Basically, you are placing a star post in place of 2 metal posts with a rubber stretched between them. That rubber (under constant tension) tends to pull/warp and buckle the upper plastic playfield. The star post is an elegant mod and works well in practice. Heading into the home stretch and I had just a few things to finish. I added 2 SMD yellow LED’s in the front row but covered them in the yellow rubber condoms. I added naked warm white frosted LED’s for the back row.

For reference, all lights in the upper playfield (except the rear flashers) are bayonet style with twist lock connectors into the light boards. When I mounted the light boards back to the playfield, I used some more blue Loctite because you really can’t crank those nuts down without damaging the circuit board. The Loctite ensures those nuts will stay. The last steps were to add rubber rings to the posts and to ensure the decal was somehow adhered to the bottom so it did not droop and interfere with game play or get damaged. I use E6000 for everything – hell, I put it in my coffee. OK, so that’s a stretch … but I use it a lot in Pinball repair. It’s perfect for this situation. A very small “dot” of it placed in 5 places along the back of that large bottom decal is all you need to hold it tightly in place. If you ever want to remove it, just gently pull and it will release with no harm done. I did the same for the rear (yellow and red striped) decal. Upper playfield DONE.  

Mylar, Plastics and Game 1

The Mylar on this game needed a good polish and the playfield needed some cleaning as well. Polishing the playfield is fairly straightforward but its messy. I use a 2,800 RPM hand drill with polishing pads. Keep the pads dedicated to each polishing “grit” by storing them in labelled baggies. I start with Meguiar’s Medium Cut. You don’t need much. If you use too much it just spins and sprays all over the place anyway. Polish until the pad is “almost dry” but not completely or you will quickly build up too much heat. Use your hand from time to time to check the playfield temperature. Warm to very warm is OK – HOT IS NOT!

Then I wipe the playfield down clean and start with Meguiar’s Fine Cut. Repeat the procedure using Meguiar Mirror Glaze and you’re done. Depending on the amount of scratching/cloudiness to your Mylar, you may need to start with a more aggressive polish. If you are new to this I suggest you choose a spot away from the flippers and away from the center of the playfield and test it – go through all 3 polishes and see if the result is satisfactory. If it’s not “shiny” enough, it’s more likely you did not START with a course enough grit – not that you did not spend enough time working the other/finer ones.

The logic is simple. Course grit removes the deepest scratches, Medium gets the next ones BUT can not now remove any course ones left behind in stage one. Get the first stage wrong and the Mylar will only be as “shiny” as that first choice. I’ve never gotten Mylar to “shine like new” but I have always vastly improved the look and you can do the same. I finished the day by using my Super Clean degreaser to clean up the pop skirts and the inside (blue painted part) edges of the cabinet to the left and right of the playfield. I swear I don’t know how that could get “greasy” but it did. No amount of soap and water would remove it but the Super Clean did! 

As  I noted when I picked up the game, there were also a few spots around the edges of the Mylar that needed to be trimmed away. When Mylar loses it’s grip at the edges, it not only comes loose but it also grabs any and all available dirt and grime and holds it to the now exposed adhesive. Those lifted sections cant be saved. I started by trimming them. First step is the plan the attack. You are literally cutting away part of a pattern that was very purposefully placed on the playfield. The cut you make to remove it has to:- Look good- Work well (not lead to any playfield wear)- Be “far enough” into the good Mylar (so no more lifting takes place) I made mental notes where I needed to cut (it was 4 different places) and here are my steps. Start with a new blade or fresh razor knife. Make one “score cut” not all the way through Mylar, then turn the knife on edge (may need to expose several lengths of blades). Cut along score mark, while tugging loose end. I made all the cuts successfully and the game looks significantly better without the “black flaps” of Mylar all over the place.

Time to move to the new plastics set I ordered and get this game ready to play! The first thing you notice when you compare the old plastics to the new is that they are NOT the same. Oh, all the shapes and colors are the same but the old plastics have parts riveted to them – like quite a few parts! They require that you drill out rivets in the old plastics and remove, then move those components (mostly errant ball deflectors) to the new plastics. So what I had planned to be a pretty quick process to get the new parts populated onto the game was at first slowed down by the need to get the new plastics set ready for install.

An hour with the rivet tool and I was now ready. It was the weekend and I was glad because I would need a bit of time to pull this off. Remember – I did not take this game apart. I picked it up with all the playfield components in a box. This makes the challenge of knowing what post and what gate goes where even more challenging. The rough order is to add the playfield posts and gates as you go (first), then add the center upper playfield, then the side ramps and work your way down to the slings and flippers. After 3 hours or so, I had it back together … except for the slings. Darn it. I was a few metal posts short.

I did not have enough of the steel rods that go through the star posts and into the playfield either terminating in a #6 wood screw or a 6/32 machine end. I was missing a few of each. I racked my brain on how to make/modify or jury-rig it to get it together but to no avail. I would have to wait for the parts from Marco to finish adding the sling rubbers. No matte. I didn’t wait anyway. I played a game or two and even without the slings I could tell it was going to be fun! The only real issue presenting itself was the drops being super “sticky” and taking forever to drop after being hit. I had already prepared for the repair by ordering all new drop target components. That fix would be for another day.

I’m Melting

Today I tackled the little seen backbox area. The white colored light board is always a mess on these games and the only thing that seems to be able to get them clean are the industrial strength degreasers – like Super Clean. This stuff is surprisingly powerful so I usually spray the rag, then use it to clean with. My exception to that is when cleaning the cabinets. After testing a spot for potential paint loss, I will spray the whole cab, then after a minute, wash it down with a damp rag to remove any remaining degreaser. After cleaning the back box light board, it looked almost new again. Next I moved on to replacing all the 47 incandescent bulbs with 2 SMD warm white LED’s. I then replaced all of the burned out flashers with fresh incandescent #89s.

This, it turns out, was a mistake as you see later. Next I moved on to the spinning card decal on the draw poker wheel mechanism. I tried peeling the old one off – no luck. I decided to use my heat gun on low and once it got started it came off nicely and left almost no residue. I installed my new one using the index marker (black triangle on the decal and “notch” on the wheel itself) and squeegeed it out flat. It looked awesome compared to the dirty, bubbled and blistered one I just removed. I Installed new translight and was disappointed with the color saturation – it was not the translight problem, it was the fact that I had just installed 2 SMD LED bulbs in the backbox – it was simply too bright. Oh well, time to play a game anyway. I could always swap out the LED’s for a single SMD later.

About 5 minutes into the game I started to smell something burning – it was my translight. The new flashers I had just installed that correspond with the Draw Poker function in the backglass were locked on because of a previously blown transistor at Q16. They had gotten hot enough to melt my translight right around the Draw Poker see through window. Bummer. I typed a quick message to the gentleman that I ordered it from on Ebay begging for a “frequent flyer” discount. He was kind enough to allow one so I ordered a new translight. While waiting for the new one to arrive, I was struck by the idea that maybe I could stuff the older/melted one in behind the new one and get 2x the saturation of colors – maybe even leave my 2 SMD LED lamp in? The translight arrived when I was traveling but when I returned home, I popped open the shipping tube and installed it in front of the other one. The registration was perfect and lo and behold so was the color saturation! It almost looks like a backglass – really nice!

Now I noticed that the cards on the draw poker wheel were about 1/2″ our of alignment with the see through window. It was bugging me. I searched high and low for a way to adjust the rotational/index alignment of the spinning disk but without success. I could test it using the menu system. I could make very small adjustments by loosening the 4 mounting screws in the back. I could make it move step by step in test mode. I could move it by hand to align it BUT nothing would make the adjustment “stick”. So I solved it the old fashioned way. I pulled it out of the game and tossed it in the trash. Kidding. I ordered another replacement decal for $9, marked the one that was installed so I knew how much to rotate the new one. Taped the new one to the old one with painters tape. Played a dozen games to watch it and make certain it was lined up, THEN I used my heat gun to remove the old one and install my fresh one in the correct position – problem solved! 

Make it Sparkle

I had already Installed about half of the total insert LED’s and today my project was to add the remaining. I color matched all the inserts and am pleased with the result. I used some of the Comet flex product to great effect. Specifically the arrow inserts under each of the left and right ramps. the “10,00 W/L” large inserts left and right of the center ramp and, finally, the “Deal Again” insert between the flippers. All of the GI and backbox were LED’s using Comet 2 SMD Warm Whites with the frosted lens. I took the time to document the insert LED type and color and that chart is listed here for reference. While under the playfield I completed a repair a 2 terminal connector that someone had cut and then rewired improperly. These were a .062/2 pin style housing and I had a male/female pair on hand so in just a few minutes I had the new terminals crimped on and inserted into the fresh housing. 

Dealt a Bad Hand

The fact that the Draw Poker flashers were not working (locked on) was driving me nuts. I read the schematic and for the life of me could not find which transistor drove that flasher section so I posted the issue on Pinside. I got a quick response that narrowed the issued to the Q12 pre-driver and Q16 transistor. I had already checked the board and noticed that Q16 was blown out so this confirmed what needed to be fixed. I had a TIP102 transistor on hand and the 2N4401 pre-driver as well so all I needed to do was remove the circuit board and get busy un-soldering and soldering. Removing the system 11 board is very straightforward. Take a bunch of pics of all the plugged in connectors, then unplug them all – then unscrew 6 phillips head screws to unbolt the board from the metal stand-offs.

While I had the board out, I soldered in a new remote battery holder that I ordered from Marco BUT the supply wires were waaaay too short, so I needed to first solder on longer leads (WHY!!??). With the new leads in place I had enough length to mount the battery box almost anywhere within the head.  To pull the old burned out components off the board, I used my Hakko desoldering tool. First I removed the pre-driver (oops, removed Q10 instead – soldered it back – no harm). Back on track, I desoldered the CORRECT component, the Q12 pre-driver and soldered in a new one, clipped the leads and moved on to the Q16 transistor (TIP102). Ugh. The Q16 was a mess- ground leg was completely blown out, the trace was lifted and the through hole was enlarged. The traces were lifted on the center leg too although the last leg was fine. When I tried to add solder to the blown out grounded leg, it simply dripped through the hole and pooled across all 3 legs of my newly installed transistor – time to desolder and start over. This time, I scratched the front of the circuit board to expose the ground trace and soldered the transistor ground leg to that exposed area using a solder “blob” or solder trail   

Molasses Drops

Today was drop target day. The drops in Jokerz play a unique role in the game vs other games. First, there are 9 (yes, 9) drop targets spread out over 3 individual banks. The lower banks (left and right on the lower PF) are positioned so they can be purposefully targeted. The upper left bank – not so much. No matter … mine were taking a month to drop after hitting them and looked like they had taken a frontal attack from a nuclear blast at some point – they were a mess. I bought all new drop targets and (I thought) a completely new set of decals. I got the targets, but my decal set from Planetary Pinball was 3 Jokerz short of a full deck. I sent them an email asking for the rest.

Meantime, I set about rescuing the best 3 from the 9 old ones. To pull the drop targets for cleaning and repair is super simple. Loosen the wood screw holding the single bulb that lights the insert for each and rotate that bulb holder out of the way. Carefully pull the circuit board connectors from each drop target board (there are only 2). Then use your 1/4″ magnetic nut driver to remove the bottom 2 screws holding the drop target frame to the bottom of the playfield. Then remove either one of the top screws. Next hold the entire mech while you remove the last screw (there are only 4 total). Finally, use your 9/16″ nut driver to remove the coil stops on the attached coils, thus allowing you to remove the coil from the bracket, freeing the bracket to be removed entirely. I always mark which bank of targets each represents (Lower Left, Lower Right, etc.) just because I want to put them back where they came from – even if they are interchangeable. If one of them was experiencing any board issues or misbehavior, I don’t want to unknowingly transport that problem to a new spot in the game. While the coil is hanging there from the bottom of the play field, I slip in a brand new coil sleeve. The next steps are all “Mike Rowe” dirty jobs kinda things.

Pop off all the retaining clips, carefully save all the washers and spray the entire bracket with your favorite degreaser (Super Clean for me). Spray and clean those washers and clips too – very important as the drops “slide” along the face of those parts and you don’t want them all sticky with grease and God knows what. Use a bit of alcohol to clean the face of the new targets and then stick the new target decals into position. Rub them hard to get good adhesion to the surface of the new target. Add new target springs cause the old ones are probably worn out, reassemble and you’re ready to put them back in the game.  

Well bummer. I played a couple games and the drop targets are super snappy when going down, but now they are struggling to go UP! How can that be? Brand new everything, sparkling clean, etc. Well, there can only be a few things that cause this. Especially because all 3 banks are the same issue. Either I put them together wrong (I did not), there is not enough voltage getting to the entire circuit (there was) or … the brand new springs I put on all the drops are too strong (they were). So I spend the next 15 minutes digging through the garbage trying to fish out the 9 old springs I tossed when I was finished rebuilding the drops last night. Scrape the potato peeling off and installed the old vs the new and voila – they all work again. How on earth did I get drop springs that were “too strong”?  

My Head is Loose

I drove over to see the seller during lunch today and returned the spare ramp he loaned me. While there, I had a chance to see some new games he had gotten in. There were quite a few and several that caught my eye. Bally Frontier, Gottlieb Totem, Harlem Globe Trotters to name a few. I was mostly interested in a Gottlieb Volcano that he had. It needed quite a bit of work but he was getting much of it fixed before offering it for sale. I put my name at the top of the list when it was ready. I headed back to work and ended up leaving work later than normal. Once home, I had a ton of work to do on planning our new house. Tami and I spent more than an hour reviewing the electrical plan and making notes for our builder. When we finished there wasn’t much time left for Pinball repair BUT … I thought I might at least head out to the pole barn and get one thing done on Jokerz. So tonight was the night to tackle the head. If you remember, it was cracked, chipped and separated in several areas. There would be no quick fix for the cosmetics of it but there needed to be a permanent fix for the structural issues. Tonight I would address the structure of it to make it sound again.

The head was cracked at the top left and bottom left dovetailed area where the side panel joins both the top and bottom. The back panel was completely lifted from its rebate on the left and halfway across the bottom. My plan was to use glue and my Paslode finish nailer to get it back sound. I wedged a screwdriver into the top and bottom left joints to force them open while adding glue. When the glue had settled into the joint, I used the Paslode with 1 1/4″ finish nails to secure it tightly. The rear panel was trickier but no too difficult. I carefully pried  the panel away and backwards from the entire side/top frames. This was a little scary as I was essentially pulling the entire circuit/ground board assembly with it. Being careful not to COMPLETELY pull it free from the right side where it remained fully glued, I was able to drip glue into the interior of the head using Q-tips into the void I had just created by pulling the panel. I then pushed the panel back to its correct position within the rebated edge and used the Paslode to secure it. Pretty? No. Functional. You bet!  

Fire Wire

The power cord always looked a little sketchy to me. I decided to order a 14′ replacement from Marco. Like everything related to restoring a Pinball, it’s not as straightforward as you think. I needed to find out how to get the original cord loose from the filter/ground box connection before I could proceed. First, I unplugged the machine. Then I checked to make sure I had unplugged the machine. Next I removed the 4 wood screws that mount the filter box to the sidewall of the cabinet. Now I could see the soldered connections and the strain relief that was used to secure the cord in the box. It is easier with these types of strain relief designs to “push” the strain relief back OUT of the box, then unhinge it and remove it from the cord (save it as you’ll need it again). I took several pictures to make sure I soldered the new cord correctly.

Quickly there appeared to be a problem. The original cord was European color coded and the Marco cord was North American. I checked Pinside and Vid1900 had a great section on how to replace an old power cord on a Williams system 11. I followed that to the letter and all ended well. The old cord was quite loose on the plug end and I feel much more comfortable with the new one installed. There is great info on this link for anyone looking to do the same!

Rocky Ramp

I was going to call it quits but Pinball can make you pretty obsessive. I just couldn’t leave that cracked lift ramp alone. So on a rainy weeknight around 8:30pm I grabbed my rivet tool and headed out to the workshop. I can knock this out in an hour – right? Nope. But I did get it done in 2! Not too shabby from a flat footed start.

Let’s see … just getting it off seemed to be a bit of a puzzle. The mystery is now solved and I’ll share it with you. The entire assembly is held on by just 2 machine screws. Look under the playfield directly under the attached metal ramp flap and you’ll see them. ONE of them is under the motor bracket and you’ll need to remove the 4 motor bracket screws to get to it. Use your 1/4″ magnetic nut driver and you’ll have the motor bracket off there in no time. Just gently move it to the side and let it hang by the soldered joints to the attached switch. Now remove the 2 machine screws that hold the ramp and the entire ramp comes out. As soon as I got it out, I made a quick scan of the face of the ramp “just in case”. Then I turned it upside down onto a piece of 0.093 Lexan and traced the exterior and cut a fresh piece using my jigsaw and laminate blade. Now I was ready to tackle that decal.

Now that it was out, I was now keenly aware that there was a bigger issue. The red decal was glued on. I also had no idea what it was made of. Would it come off with some gentle tugging? Was it paper and it would quickly tear? I got my first answer – NO. Pulling was not going to accomplish anything good. Next step was the heat gun. That was going to work. Going slowly and taking advantage of the broken pieces to peel just a little at a time, I started to make headway. I kept the decal “just hot enough” to keep it moving until it was completely off. Steady and slow is the way – no need to hurry it or you might end up with “2 decals” if you know what I mean.

It was off. It was incredibly sticky. The good news was that it was also made of the SAME material as the upper playfield decal – maybe a little thinner but certainly the same. That means the cleaning procedure is the same. Goo-Gone and lots of rags. I sprayed and let it soak for 2 minutes. Then I started rubbing, careful not to “catch” an edge and wrinkle it. After 5 minutes or so it was clean as a whistle. Time to get this thing glued back to my newly cut Lexan ramp. But first … I took one more “clean” scan.

To put the decal back on the ramp/Lexan requires some special tape. It’s from 3M and the code number is 467. It’s sticky on 2 sides and super thin. It’s used by many Pinball restorers to attach decals to ramps. Just get the old decal flat, cut a section of the 3M tape slightly longer than the decal. Square up one end of the decal at one end of the tape and then work the tape bit by bit until the entire decal is covered. Remember, you are putting the sticky part of the tape on the FACE of the decal. Next, trim away the excess tape from around the perimeter of the decal. Finally, pull the brown protective covering off the tape and prepare to “stick it” to the new piece of Lexan. Carefully align the bottom (widest) part first and eyeball the rest. There is NO TEST STICK. If it simply touches the Lexan it is bonded until eternity. You can see on mine that I got it a 1/16″ off to the left – oh, well. It is now married in that position. No prenuptial is going to help undo what is done. Proceed carefully.

All that’s left is to rivet the Lexan to the frame up top and to the frame AND the ramp metal on the bottom. Don’t forget to include the ramp metal flap in your parts sandwich when you prep for riveting the hinge end (ask me how I know to tell you that). The top is easy – 2 parts, 2 rivets and you’re done. The bottom has the metal ramp flap, the Lexan/decal, the entire frame piece AND, finally the hinge all included in your rivet job – again add 2 rivets. Couple hours and it’s looking brand new. It’s made from Lexan and will never crack again. Now about those black key lines and missing paint around that ramp … hmmmm.

Dirty Apron

I had ordered a replacement decal for my damaged apron almost a month ago. It still hadn’t come so I reached out to the seller who shipped me another one. Well, today – they both showed up. One with a ship date from more than 3 weeks ago. No matter. It was here and I had a few minutes to duck into the shop and prepare the apron for the install

Prepping the apron involves REMOVING all of the existing art. It’s painted on and getting it off is tricky. I soak mine in Goo-Gone for 5 minutes then use plastic razor blades and my fingernails with a rag to step-by-step scrape away the paint. You need to be careful that you don’t remove the black base paint or you will be refinishing the entire apron. When you finally get all the artwork scraped off, then wipe down the apron with some alcohol to remove the remaining Goo-Gone. Next I install the left and right triangles. Line them up along the top edge of the instruction card recesses. Let them stick in the middle and then work the decal left and right. This eliminates air bubbles.

The center decal is a little trickier to install. First, I remove the backing from the large “W” medallion and a little bit to the left and right as well. Position the decal so the base of the “W” is right down near the bottom edge of the apron and make certain it’s level. Then let the bottom edge stick to the apron and work your way up until the entire medallion is on. Now you can work the “wings” that are left and right of the medallion because you left the backing on. Peel away about 2/3rds of the backing and work the “wing” toward the outside of the apron taking care to keep it level along the bottom as you go. Repeat for the other side and you are done!

Playing Cards

So how’s it play? Great! I’m a big fan of the simpler games and Jokerz is very easy to play and understand. Plus, it has 3 ramps and lifting ramp, 3 banks of drops, a multi-ball and a spinning deck of cards in the backglass. What’s not to love? A few if my favorite things about the game:

• The left and right ramps are challenging to hit consistently. They look deceptively simple – they are not
• The drops are challenging as well. The top left set is mostly hit by the pops action but the bottom left and right drop targets (especially the single target closest to the flippers) are hard too.
• LOVE the Draw Poker animated backglass. What a fun idea
• The flippers do NOT have to be super powerful to accomplish what needs to be done in the game. Each ramp is easily hit, yet the flippers don’t beat up the plastics in the game.
• The asymmetrical ramp shot up the middle is brilliant. Not much risk at all of having SDTM drains – well done
• I really like the simple but well executed sounds and call-outs
• The multi-ball launch into the pops area
• Lock stealing is a game function
• Finally, the art – nice job John

For some really great photos of Jokerz during a shop out, visit http://www.videoengine.com/pins/jokerz/jokerzmain.htm 

As you might guess by looking at my collection, I’ve been on a bit of a mission lately to collect EM titles. I’m also a history buff and when I got the chance to pick up a local copy of Williams “Space Mission” I was excited at the opportunity. My problem is that I’m in the middle of building a new house and if I asked my wife to buy one more pinball she would likely drop one on me. If I was to get this machine, I would have to be stealthy. But how do you “sneak” a pinball machine into the house? You’ll see a bit later, you don’t.

I knew the seller and had purchased games from him before so it was a quick trip once we arranged our schedules. I was pleased on the day we planned to meet because (at least at the time) it looked like it was not going to rain! I have a pickup truck and my track record for picking up games in inclement weather is near perfect.

I got there at the appointed time and met him in his shop/garage to see the game. We talked pinball for a bit and spent a few minutes checking out a nice condition Gottlieb Haunted House he had just picked up. That title is still on my wish list for a later date. I turned my attention to Space Mission and noticed right away it had some issues. The biggest being the cupped inserts, a destroyed apron (missing paint) and the fact that it simply would not start player 3 or 4. I shared with the seller that the inserts would require clear coat or at a minimum a playfield protector installed. He agreed and was willing to adjust the price accordingly. I offered him a price that allowed me to buy a protector and asked if he had another apron laying around to replace the damaged one. He did. He changed it out on the spot. I bought the machine and loaded it. Done

I hit the road and it immediately started to rain – well drizzle anyway. Whew! I was worried I might break the streak. The roads got slick and I began to make a plan to pull over and tarp the machine. The thought had barely left my head when I came over the crest of a hill on the narrow road I was on and came upon a car off the road and in the ditch. Waaaay in the ditch! I slowed but saw that no one appeared hurt and there were a half dozen locals standing around looking like they had the situation under control – I moved on. I stopped a bit farther down the road in a parking lot and put a tarp on the machine – good move, it started to pour. I made it safely home and unloaded the machine into the pole barn. Tami was out at a concert and although I’m sure she knows the Space Mission sitting in the pole barn is “new to us” she still hasn’t said anything. How could she? It was such a good deal and it’s out of the way in the barn!

One of my favorite things about the Pinball hobby is not the hunt for a new pinball, not playing pinball, not listening to pinball podcasts, but actually taking a broken, or imperfect machine and bringing it back to life in a step-by-step, methodical fashion. That was my plan with Space Mission. First, a little background on this title …

Space Mission is a Steve Kordek designed game released in January of 1976. It was designed to celebrate a moment in time when 2 superpowers took a step back from being wary of each other and cooperated to achieve a common goal in space. I was 16 years old at the time and remember vividly the US Bicentennial of the same year AND the general attitude and politics of the US and Soviet governments of the time. We were nearing the end of the cold war and Thomas Otten Paine the NASA Administrator of the time sent a letter to the Soviets proposing a cooperative space mission. A few months later it was set. The US and Soviets would dock in space, ceremoniously shake hands, conduct some joint scientific experiments, have lunch and return home safely. For the most part all went as planned. They successfully docked on July 17th 1975, and overall the event was heralded as a huge success for the newly minted process of “detente”. The US team had a bit of trouble on splashdown with some poisonous gases entering the cabin, and although it was a close call (they spent 2 weeks in a hospital in Honolulu) they all recovered to tell the tale. Here’s a cool tidbit of history. The US and Soviet flight commanders, Stafford and Leonov became lasting friends. According to Wikipedia, Leonov is the godfather of Stafford’s younger children – now that’s detente

The artwork on Space Mission is from Christian Marche who has more than a hundred Pinball machines to his credit. The backglass art was inspired by a painting by Robert McCall. Check out the image and you’ll see the unmistakable similarities (image from NASA website). Space Mission is actually 2 machines. It has a little brother named Space Odyssey – a 2 player game vs the 4 player that is Space Mission. They made 11,652 total units of Space Mission with roughly 5,600 units for the US market and the remaining exported overseas. It’s model number was #464 and they sold to distributors for $861.50 and had a manufactured cost of $355.99 (info courtesy of IPDB)

The first thing I did when I got the machine home was to start a deep clean. The most obvious area is usually the cabinet and in this case it was pretty dirty. Sitting for years in a bar will deposit a surprising amount of nicotine that is hard to see until you spray some purple power on it. You need to be careful because these types of degreasers can easily remove paint if left on too long. My method is to test a spot first. If all goes well, I’ll spray, let sit for 15 seconds, then wipe off. I always follow that step with a clean, wet cloth to remove any residual degreaser. Quite a bit of tar stains came off this machine in the process. It was looking better already!

Next I moved to the interior of the cabinet. The seller had already done some cleaning but there were lots of pieces of nuts and old fiberglass insulation that either squirrels or mice had introduced to the game at one time. It grabbed my trusty mini-vac and got rid of that in short order. The playfield was already in great shape as the seller had cleaned it as good as it was going to be without a full touch-up/clear coat. No further work was needed. However, there was one plastic on the play field that had a large chunk out of it from an errant ball. In addition, the plastics had the expected yellowing that comes from the “bar life”. I knew that CPR made a replacement set so I put that on my “might spend the money” list depending on how much the rest of the repairs/restore might cost

Cosmetically, I noticed a few things as I took inventory of the condition. First the pop caps were the wrong color – Space Mission games had blue factory pop caps and the ones on this game were white. The saucer cups in both kick-out holes were yellowed and nasty, as were the lane guides at the top of the game. The leg bolts were a mix of 9/16″ and 5/8″ head leg bolts with a few “Home Depot” subs thrown in for good measure. A few of them threaded hard and most looked rusty and beat up – time to replace them. I took a note to add these items to my Pinball Resource order.

At this time, I thought I would play test the machine and see if I might be able to get the 3 and 4 player credits to work. During extended gameplay, you get to see a few things you might not have noticed during the test games you play at the sellers location. This was true here as well. Surprise! There are a few more things that are not “quite right”. Let’s see … the flippers are pretty weak. The left even more than the other. The rollover switch in the horseshoe shot does not register. The match indicator is not coming on. The captive ball lane on the left side switch is only operating intermittently (and stopping gameplay when it does not!).

So where to start. I quickly wrote orders to Marco, PBR, and the Playfield Protector team over in Germany. The leg bolts from Marco and the blue cabinet protectors came quickly so I got them installed first. I then turned my attention to those weak flippers. First, I needed to check all switches for cleanliness and good contact. Check (after I filed and cleaned them!). Next was a quick look at the EOS switches. They were opening way too soon and that was a big culprit in the left flipper being very weak. Using my switch adjust tool, I reset those accordingly. Now it was time to use my fresh parts to completely rebuild them. New bats, shafts, coil stops, sleeves and flipper bushings. I re-used the plunger shafts and just ground down and wire wheeled them smooth. Messy business but they are fresh and snappy now!

I setup the game during our Ranch Christmas party and it got lots of plays. There were lots of “I haven’t played one of these in years” comments and at least one guest asked that I help buy her one for her husband. She wondered if there were any motorcyle themed pinballs. I assured her there were and I’d start looking for one locally. During the party, the left captive ball kicker was still giving intermittent trouble but I was able to shotgun repair it right there and get the game running again.

A few days after the party, the game started exhibiting some strange behavior. Sometimes you could get a game to start with the credit button and other times the game was completely unresponsive. Being new to the EM world, I was clueless where to start, so I posted my situation to Pinside and waited for the good people there to help. While waiting, I noticed that if I manipulated the coin door switches, I could get a credit to show on the game. I still could not get the 3rd or 4th player to start BUT at least I could get into game play. So I went back to the schematics and reviewed the coin door switches. I posted what I saw on Pinside and between Pinside feedback and a little homework, I figured it out. The coin door switches were badly adjusted. One of them is “make/break” type switch and for whatever reason that was set permanently open.

With the coin switches working, I could “drop a coin” in the slot and go about playing a 1 player or 2 player game. I closed up the coin door, hit the credit button and … wait for it … NOTHING! Back to square one (or so I thought). I posted my result to Pinside and then began to research “free play” for a Williams EM pinball machine. I found my answer on the web and it was as simple as shorting (or using an alligator clip, like I did) a switch back in the head on the credit unit. Simple, done. It worked! Now I had a game that could be played as intended … sort of. You see, when I was checkout out the back side of the head where the score reels are, I noticed there was a little stepper unit right in the middle that said “match unit”. But it wasn’t doing any “matching” – in fact it was doing nothing. I poked and prodded a bit and soon discovered how it was at least intended to work. It was driven at the end of each game via solenoid. A plate was supposed to move forward engaging a nylon “tooth” on a nylon cog/gear that would then drive the contacts in a circular fashion around the bakelite plate. This made an electrical connection that then lit one of 10 bulbs in the backglass. These bulbs then highlight the numbers on the backglass 00 through 90. If your score ended in the 2 digits randomly presented you win a free game.

But mine just sat there because the plate that was supposed to be there was broken in half and the nylon tooth was missing. No tooth, no match! Finding that part was like hunting for the Ark of the Covenant. Unicorns are easier to find. Finally, someone on Pinside suggested I check out Flippers.com up in Canada. Sure enough they had the part! Pricey at $25 plus shipping but the only game in town – so thankful they have them.

If you pull just the bottom 2 short black screws and you are patient, you can get the new plate inserted back in there, the tooth aligned on the cog, the plate return spring (attaches to bottom of the new part) hooked back on and the whole thing screwed back together. I did but it was a bit of a delicate/frustrating time and took over 30 minutes for something that seems so simple – replace it and you’ll see why. That tooth always wants to pull toward the backglass and end up on that (wrong) side of the cog. Keep after it and you’ll be rewarded with a match feature that works.

So what about that 3/4 player bit? I asked myself … don’t you think someone will someday want to play this in 4 player mode? Why didn’t you just buy a Space Odyseey? That’s a 2 player! As you can see – it bothered me. So I began a quest to find out how to get the machine to work as intended – as a 4 player EM. I noticed when mucking around earlier that if I forced the switch closed on the cabinet located coin unit, I COULD add 3rd and 4th players.

It made sense to start there. I posted a picture of the orientation of that switch on Pinside and did a little more research. I suspected that the switch was installed on the wrong side of the actuator pin. With some web based images and a confirm from the Pinside team, it was clear that this was the issue. A was a little unsure what to do other than “move the switch to the other side” because I did not know how and at what point the actutator pin interacted with that switch. A little more web searching showed me that in 4th player position, the switch is broken open by that actuator. Perfect, now all I had to do is watch that actuator pin move as I hit the credit button each time and then set the switch to stay “closed” until the pin hit the 4th player (last) position. I shot a video so I could review each pin position as well. I loosened the front screw on the switch stack, rotated that switch outward and then over the actuator pin – now it was on the correct side. I set the gap on it so it looked like it would stay closed until the 4th player position and … it worked! Perfectly. I now have a game that can be played as intended.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkIWbniH6f4?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=281]

Back to the very beginning of this story. Remember when I shared that the seller agreed to knock some off the price so I could buy a playfield protector? It really needed it as the inserts in some spots were cupped so badly they were changing the ball direction and badly impacting play. So, I ordered one from Germany and it was now time to do that install. Chris was there to help but adding these to EM games is about as simple as it gets. No ramps to get in the way, no complex mechs or habitrails either. Just start by making sure the playfield is super clean, then remove the plastics.

You first remove the protective backing (both sides have this, but leave the top side on for now), then lay the new protector over the playfield. Nothing “bolts” or screws it down, it simply free floats. It needs to or the heat from the incandescent bulbs would cause it to swell and buckle. In the case of Space Mission, I had to remove just one side of the spinner gate assembly in order to slip the protector under it. Other than the plastics, and importantly the flipper bats, nothing else needed to be removed to install. These protectors are amazing in how they fit, but sometimes take some tweaking to be perfect. Mine was no exception and you can see where a red post on each side of the outlanes could have used a notch cut in it for the best fit. I cut it out myself and moved on – problem fixed.

If you own pinball machines, then you know you’re never really “done” when repairing or restoring one. Space Mission was no exception. With some time on my hands and the Christmas parties over with, I dug in with both hands. First was to install some new lane guides and pop caps up top. The old lane guides had turned a nice nicotine yellow and (as you now know) the pops were the wrong color. This was literally a 3 minute job. Boom. Done. Looks fantastic now.

With the lane guides done, it was an even faster job to remove 4 pop cap screws and replace the old, yellowed ones with the vibrant blue original ones that I had ordered from PBR. Again, they fit perfect, went on fast and look outstanding.

Space Mission was looking good. I was feeling good about it but I wasn’t hearing the best “sounds” from her. She needed her chime box tweaked. Don’t we all from time to time? Another order to PBR and I soon had in my hands a complete Williams chime box repair/rebuild kit. It included foam washers, nylon top washer, tubing, sleeves and a rubber strip for the striker shafts that shoot from the 3 vertically mounted coils under the playfield.

The PBR kit is slick and comes with everything you need to make your chimes sing again. I used my own tubing by cutting red heat shrink tape, then using my heat gun on high, ran it over the tubing to quickly shrink it to the metal tabs. I purposefully kept the tubes short so the chime bars do NOT bind or scrunch them down when you re-install. If they do, your chimes will sound dead. I added the new coil sleeves, cleaned up the coil shafts, added the new foam washers and foam block under the coil shafts. I then took a few minutes to polish the chime bars, then put it all back together, added the copper pins and man … in ain’t stereo but it sure sounds sweet now.

I ordered a fresh box of #47 bulbs for the game and one day when I had a few extra minutes, I replace nearly 100% of the backbox lights. The #47 bulbs runs much cooler (draws only 150 ma of current) than the #44 (draws 250 ma current) . The #44 were of course original, but the #47 give off nearly as much light. Those lower temps are easier on the paint on the backglass and on playfield plastics as well. Replacing bulbs in the backbox is a pain as some of them are very difficult to reach. A bulb tool is very helpful here.

For just a few dollars and available for many games, Marco and other suppliers can set you up with crisp white apron cards. It’s really hard to to understand how yellowed and nasty these are until you get the new ones. Bravo to our supplier community that these are still available. Cheap and effective enhancement to the game. I put mine on in just a few minutes.

I fee like I’m getting close to completing phase one of the Space Mission restore. This spring I plan to paint and stencil the cabinet. For now, there are just a few minor things to finish. I have a new set of plastics I ordered from CPR. I added those recently and was blown away by how the color (especially the blues) had faded/changed to more green due to time and cigarette smoke. When I finished installing the new plastics, I played a few games and headed into the house. On the way, my phone indicated I had gotten an email. It was a reminder from Ebay that a favorite seller has just listed some new items. I sat down at my desktop in the office and pulled it up.

Karma. Fortune. Blessings. It was the original blueprint from the Williams corporate office archives for … Space Mission. I bid, and then won it. What a privilege to have a piece of history this significant. Space Mission was/is a popular EM designed by a prolific and great guy – Steve Kordek. I now own the original signed blueprints for the game he designed. I can’t wait to get Space Mission and this piece of history set up in the new game room. Who could have predicted that when I bought this game, I would have the opportunity to acquire the blueprints too – how cool is that?

The story behind the game begins in the middle of the sickness many of us have. I wanted another game. Not because I needed one but more because I was building a new Pinball game room and would now have space for many more games. I happened to see a game called “Strikes ‘N Spares” for sale on Ebay as I was looking for other, non-related Pinball parts. I had never seen the game before and quickly switched to Pinside to research it. My wife was involved in bowling in her younger years and I figured she might even enjoy this as much as Pinball. Hey, anything that interests her around the subject is worth pursuing!

After a few forum searches on Pinside I discovered a few things about the game I didn’t know. First, the price of sold games from Pinside was about half what Ebay was (no surprise) and second that the game seemed a little “rarer” even than the number manufactured would suggest. I dug a little deeper.

Oh, THAT Strikes ‘N Spares

Strikes‘N Spares is a game made in 1995 by Premier Technology under the trade name Gottlieb. They made just 750 of them. It’s a game that is listed on IPDB, Pinside and other Pinball related sites even though it’s not a Pinball game. It doesn’t play like a Pinball game. It doesn’t score like a Pinball game and you probably will not play it “alone” much like you do your other Pinball games. Later in this post, I’ll explain why despite all that … I have no plans to ever sell it. It’s a very cool looking game that emulates the feeling and look of a real bowling alley. The lighting is subdued but it’s also very dramatic. Hard to believe how they achieved that dramatic “look” with just a handful of incandescent lamps. The bowling alley is complete with dual ball return lanes – one on each side. The player can bowl “left” or “right” handed depending on which flipper they choose.

The artwork is super simple but as with the lighting somehow very dramatic. The alleyway has the exact (though miniaturized) appearance of a freshly oiled hardwood bowling alley lane. The sounds in the game do a VERY convincing job of making you feel like you are really at a bowling alley. When you flip (bowl) you hear the ball hit the lane with a solid “thump”, then hear it rolling down the lane. When you “hit” the pins, you hear them rattle and crack against each other just like at a bowling alley. As the ball makes it’s way back to you in one of the 2 return lanes, you hear it approaching as well. Just like the real thing. The game uses 14 (yes you read that right) pinballs. 6 of the total (3 per side) will just sit at the side of the ball return and never be used at all – they are just decoration. When you “bowl” the balls never make contact with the pins above them. The pinball rolls underneath them, pushing on plastic rollovers that then make contact with a switch below the playfield, telling the logic board to “flip up” the pins above the ball. It happens so quickly and elegantly that it really looks like the pinball has hit them and knocked them over. So well done!

Let’s Make a Deal!

I searched the Pinside market looking for one for sale. I private messaged a few folks that had one for sale and showed it as “not sold” on Pinside. No luck there as one was sold to a local friend and the other was long ago sold to another collector. So back to Ebay I went. There were 2 machines on Ebay at the time and there was another in one of the Facebook Pinball Marketplaces. Interestingly, one of the Ebay machines was located just down the road from me in Chattanooga. I emailed the gentleman and pitched a price to him for a sale “outside of Ebay”. Many Pinheads advertise their machines both locally and on Ebay at the same time so I thought what the heck, I’ll give it a shot. This machine was the best of all 3 that were for sale at the time. From the pictures, It looked like it was in absolutely perfect condition. I shot an offer to the seller through Ebay. It was significantly less than the selling price but … no shipping for the seller and no Ebay fees. Sadly, the offer was promptly rejected.

I then messaged the seller hoping we could make a deal outside of the Ebay network. After all, I was so close to him. I heard back from the seller that he would prefer to just let the listing ride until over. I also quickly heard back from Ebay that I had better not be making offers to purchase outside of Ebay. They are no fun anymore. I’ve been listing with them since the late 90’s but boy have the rules changed since then. So I waited. While I waited I cooked up several hair brained ways that I might get my hands on one of the other 2 Strikes ‘N spares available. Each of them were almost 8 hours away by car and neither sellers would ship. Driving that distance (and back!) didn’t seem to make sense when there WAS one just 60 minutes from my house. So I waited some more. Finally the auction ended. The game was not sold. I emailed the seller again and we began to negotiate price. I ended up paying much more than the average sale price of Pinside and a bit less than his advertised price on Ebay. I was happy with the proposed deal and we set a day to shake on it and for me to take possession of the game.

A Pleasant Surprise Pick-Up

It happened to be a weekday evening that worked out for both of us. I got home at my normal time, changed into my Pinball pick-up clothes and hit the road for the one hour trip to Chattanooga. The weather was threatening. I brought tarps and straps just in case. I arrived on time and was greeted by a super friendly, very Pinball enthusiastic guy. We shook hands and I entered his well-kept, super clean house. Turns out he has 3 or 4 machines. Several are never going anywhere. Tommy and an older EM are those titles. He also has one machine that he will trade out from time to time to keep his collection fresh. His “never-going-to-trade” machines are all upstairs and the trade when I’m bored with it game sits downstairs near the living room. The Strikes ‘N Spares was that machine.

The pictures did not lie. The machine looked brand new. Like right out of the factory new. The counter showed 435 games in total. Before we even turned it on we started talking about Pinball, the hobby, collecting. Repair, etc. He invited me to see his other games. The Tommy was super nice and I could see why he wanted to keep it. We talked for a bit and then it was back down stairs to inspect the Strikes ‘N Spares more closely. I turned it on, played a few balls.It worked perfectly. It sounded perfect. I looked perfect. I said that I would take it and handed him the agreed upon amount. He left the room for a moment and returned with the manual, all the original factory paperwork, bulletins and spare parts that came with the machine. I swear, it was like going to the Gottlieb factory and buying a new machine.

Rain Chases My Games

The next steps were to begin to disassemble the machine for transport  pickup. I’ve bought so many machines that I go everywhere prepared for this part of the process. You would be surprised how many households not only don’t have a 5/8th box end wrench, but may not even know the legs come off. I had all my usual stuff: Shrink wrap, wrenches, socket set, 4×4 post, spare head lock, pliers, small drill, zip ties, cardboard, wire cutters, blue tape, etc. My seller was impressed. I call it prepared. As prepared as I was, I’m not sure I could have figured out exactly HOW to fold the head down on this machine. Thankfully the seller in this case had a thing or two to show me. He knew that it was a compound hinged head and exactly how to unlock and safely fold it flat. I’m thankful he had that part down.

With the game folded up and wheeled out to my truck it was a quick load and I was on my way. I pulled over in a school parking lot not far from his home to double check my tie downs and to quickly check my Doppler radar. It didn’t look good. I was having flashbacks to my trip to Nashville to pick up my Williams Fire Pinball machine. There was definitely a thunderstorm ahead of me. I was just west of downtown Chattanooga and the storm was just crossing the spot where I75 and I24 intersect and I would be coming to that spot just behind the storm. Oh well, had to get home somehow so with the load secured I pulled out of the lot and headed north. The radar map was spot on.Thankfully, I had just missed the storm and much of the water had already drained from the roadway so there was no spray getting to the game. As I drove north on I75, I could see another thunderstorm brewing and tracking alongside the highway – I just got ahead of that one. I could see the lightning and very dark clouds in my rear view mirror. The rest of the trip was uneventful. I arrived home and it was dark. I unloaded the game (alone), wheeled the game into the house (alone) and then set it up (alone). I don’t mind working alone. I like myself. I don’t get lonely easily … but DANG there are some parts of the pinball hobby that demand an extra pair of hands!

23 Years Old/New

Now that the game was setup and operational, I could take a few minutes to do a close inspection. It was even cleaner than I remembered at the sellers home. The inside was immaculate. The switch and coil location cards and the card holder were still stapled inside. The playfield was nearly perfect (more on that later). The cabinet art was as good as I’ve seen on any game that was 23 years old. The reds were vibrant, the blacks scratch free and deep black.

The only issue I saw that I wanted to address was just ahead of the flippers where the playfield did not have any mylar. There was some minor scuffing in that area. I knew to look for that because if a Strikes ‘N Spares has any play field wear – that’s where it will be. The ball doesn’t come in contact with ANYTHING on the playfield except the flippers (OK, so it does roll over some plastic pieces under the fake pins to activate switches). So if wear is to happen – that’s the spot, right in front of the flippers. The other contributing factor is that the spot where players will “flip” is almost the exact same spot each time – very unlike a Pinball game. The reason is simple. This is not Pinball, it’s bowling and you aim for the same spot every time. No matter. There wasn’t any real damage, only the light scuffing.

The Mod Jobs

So a quick wax job was completed and most of the scuffs in front of the flippers were now gone. It was time to create a custom cut piece of mylar to place in the front part of the playfield to protect the only section that was left exposed at the factory. My process for that is simple. Use printer paper to create a template, then use that template to trace and cut the mylar. This took a bit longer than usual because the factory mylar has a very graceful curve to it right in front of the flipper gap. The new piece of custom mylar must be cut to tightly mate with that curve without overlapping. Too loose and that gap would eventually be dug into by the ball and remove paint/artwork. Overlap at all and you’ll create ball hop.

I finished the template, traced and cut the new mylar and VERY carefully installed it. The tight fit and the need for near perfect alignment made the installation both nerve racking and lengthy. I had to re-position the mylar 3 or 4 times but was finally satisfied that it was aligned and pressed it into position. It was perfect. It plays that way too. Like it’s not there.

Other than minor cleaning there really was not a lot that this machine needed. There WAS however, a few things I wanted to do to spice it up. Now if you want to mod your Metallica, there will be a thousand posts just on Pinside to guide you or give you some ideas. If you want to mod a machine that’s not really a Pinball and there were only 750 made … you’re more likely going to be on your own. Thank God for Todd Tuckey! He has had a few of these through the years and in one of his videos he had added green LEDs to the two troughs that hold the “bowling balls”. I liked the look so I proceeded to do the same. If you raise the playfield on a Strikes ‘N Spares, you’ll see that the area where I placed the LEDs looks as if the factory had originally considered adding lighting there as well but decided against it. I couldn’t use the factory drilled locations and had to drill new mounting holes. I used a 1/6th inch bit and drilled just about 3/16th inch into the playfield, one mounting screw and I had my LED bayonet mounts in place in no time. Next it was time to add some “lectricity” and I did that with some Comet quick connectors and alligator clips.

I scoured the internet for other mods that folks might have done to this machine, and came up mostly empty handed. So striking out on my own I started to run searches on Ebay for bowling related memorabilia. I got a hit. 300 rings. There were lots of them too. None too expensive and in a few minutes I found a few to purchase and I had a spot on the game located for them. Right at the ends of the ball returns. So I bought an ABC 300 ring (red stone) and an ABC 299 ring (blue stone), then installed them on top of my ball returns. Each of these are engraved with the names of the original owners from 1988 and 1995 respectively (1995 being the same year SnS was made). They are a nice conversation pieces and don’t block the view of the game in any way

Bowling ‘er Gameplay

The game plays like you would expect bowling to work. Because it’s electronic, there are advantages to the real thing. First, there are 3 games that can be played. Regulation bowling where the goal is to bowl a “perfect” game (300 score). There are 2 other unique games. One is called flash and works the same as regular bowling with the added challenge of scoring the most points by making your strike or spare when the under playfield flasher is at the highest point scoring position. A strike can score 400/600/800 depending on your timing. This game adds a significant challenge to the regulation version as you now must not only aim your shots (bowl) but you must time them as well. The third game is called “Strike 90” and simply changes the scoring of regulation to make spares worth 60 and strikes worth 90. If you make a strike, you keep shooting until you don’t! It exponentially increases the value of your ability to clear a spare or make a strike. All of the games are fun but the “Flash” version is certainly the most challenging.

Tournament Mode For Cash

This game also has a programming mode to be played as a tournament with cash payouts. When set in tournament mode, you put money in the machine and if you choose tournament mode, you will put in additional coins to pay for your entry. You will then play 3 consecutive games to get an average or “series” score. When completed, if your score exceeds others that have bought into the tournament, you will be asked to add your initials and your birth date for verification. Only the operators can see the birth date and will use it to make sure that you are indeed the winner. Winnings paid 3 positions deep are split 50/30/20%. Because players are always asked to “buy in” to the tournament, the operator and the establishment would always “get their share”. In other words the players were funding the pot. Seethe images for the actual tournament rules. I’m not sure that I’ve seen them reliably reproduced anywhere

Really Big Balls

It’s interesting that I now own the only Pinball machine (that I know of) that uses SMALLER than regulation pinballs (Big Betty’s Truck Stop) and another that uses LARGER than normal ones. Strikes ‘ N Spares balls are 1.25” in size. Even though that’s only 3/16^th larger than a normal pinball – it seems much larger. Because they are an “odd” size, they typically sell for about 5x the price of standard pinballs.

Kid sized

This is one (of several) Gottlieb machines that came with 2 sets of leg mounting holes. There is a lower and an upper set of holes. The lower set will raise the machine up to normal, adult player height. The upper mounting holes effectively drop the playfield down to a more kid friendly height. An interesting way to allow operators to cater the machine to each locations clientele

Playing alone?

The game is an absolute favorite at our house when you are talking about non-Pinball people. They actually like to play it. This is from people that have no desire to play regular Pinball. There seem to be a few reasons why. No matter how good the “other guy” is, your turn is coming up FAST. Games can be played in as fast as under 5 minutes if you wish. The competition has the same number of shots you have … 2 per frame. It’s so much different than when I play Pinball against a newbie. Sometimes on a Pinball game, I’ll play for 15 minutes and when the unskilled player finally gets a turn – they drain in seconds. Strikes ‘N Spares is refreshingly different. I think another reason is that the skill (at least on Regulation) is very straightforward. Aim the ball, and flip the flipper. The rules are easy if not already understood. Everybody has bowled at some point in their life. My youngest daughter will have some of her young friends over and they would never consider playing Pinball – yet … they have no problem playing this game.

When we play, in order to give both flippers an even “work out” we require players to alternate flipper sides as they bowl each frame. This also introduces some challenge if you have better aiming skills with one side or the other. The game has 2 complete DMD displays used in various ways during gameplay. Most importantly when you are playing a 4 player regulation game, you can see normal bowling style scoring for all 4 players at once. The game doesn’t have a huge variety in call-outs/sounds but one that stands out is the “Turkey” – both the image and the gobble sound when you get 3 strikes in a row. It’s a cool reward for bowling well and all who play the game look for it. The light show is simple but informative to the play. When you get a strike the red, yellow, then white flashers on both sides will light in sequence and then flash. A spare will light just one side depending on which side of the alley the spare was made. Again, these simple light cues are a real nice reward for clearing a spare of pulling off a strike. Feels like you accomplished something!

So back to playing alone. How is it? Not so good. You might do it once in a blue moon, but it’s not going to be the same as with a Pinball machine. It’s just not as fun as with a partner (or multiple partners). So my recommendation is to have this in a larger collection. It’s fun as heck with a group or even with just one friend. I’d say that most of us collect these things to have others come over and enjoy them WITH us. If that’s the case then this is one of the best bang for your buck machines you can buy. People really like to play it, even if they don’t “get” Pinball. It’s waaaay smaller than a full sized bowler, even smaller than a puck bowler and no need to put your bowling shoes on. About the most fun you can have without a real bowling ball. Well done Gottlieb!

Smart Switches & Game History

I usually post nearly 100% original content here but because information about the game is very hard to come by I am posting some info from another website. John Buras was the game designer. The below info is credited to the folks at the “PA Pinball” site and comes from an interview with John. This was John’s response to the question of how he came up with the design for the game. “I designed this game back at Gottlieb/Mylstar shortly before the company was closed.  I then brought the design along when I started at Premier, but it did not get made until the last days at Premier.  My original design did not have any of the flash, such as the animated bowling pins like the final version had.  Since I was involved with other duties at Premier, Ray Tanzer took my prototype design, and enhanced it.  I initially had the idea for this game, because the puck bowling machines were so popular at the time.  Many locations could not fit these bowling machines in their places, because of their size though.  I thought that this game could possibly fill a void, and turn people on to pinball as well.”

They then asked John about his involvement in the development of the Gottlieb “smart switches”. These switches are used on this game are very unique. John answered first by describing what they are “The Smart Switch is basically a device which translates mechanical energy into an electrical signal, that is similar to that of a mechanical switch made with contact points, but with better reliability.  The switch design was based on the properties of piezo film.” John went on to share why it was important to develop them. “One of the biggest complaints over the years after pinball went solid state was dirty switches.  This was mostly due to atmospheric contaminants due to the locations where pinballs were being operated.  If you could come up with a switch technology that would be immune to these contaminants, it would greatly reduce the maintenance on a machine.  This was very important, because pinball was always fighting the fact that the machines required more maintenance than a video game.  Anyway, I worked on the design with an outside company for over a year, and finally came up with a version of the switch, which could be used as a drop in replacement for the standard leaf type switches in many applications.  To my knowledge, the switch was received well.  I often wonder at times though how the switches are still performing in the field, since I left the industry after Premier closed its doors.” Thanks to the guys at PA Pinball for this interview material as so much of this stuff is being lost to time.

I’m keenly interested to learn even more about this rare and quirky game. If you know of someone involved in the design, reach out to me. If you have some insight into the game that I’ve missed, please share it. The game is unique in the Pinball world and crazy fun with a group as part of a larger collection.

The story behind the game –

If you’ve read the memorial article I completed for my friend Andy, then you know why I bought a NIB Metallica Premium. If you haven’t read it – check it out at the top of the page under the link “Andy”. He was quite a guy and my guess is you’ll take something good away from having read it. For those that did not read it or if you simply don’t have time, I’ll cut to the chase. I’ve always wanted a Metallica but struggled with the theme and music. Loved the gameplay, loved the artwork. My buddy Andy had a really nice MOP LE version and Darin has a Refinery Pro that I’ve played many times. There were 2 tipping points in deciding to find one for myself. First, my wife went to TPF with me and played it there. She and I then went to SFGE and she played it there as well. On both occasions she commented how much she enjoyed it. She’s also a huge music and concert fan. As all Pinheads know, it doesn’t take much prompting to go on the hunt for a new Pinball.

So maybe 3 months ago or so I began to search. I lost an opportunity to buy a nicely modded premium down in Atlanta – sold quickly to a local. Then Andy tried to help me from his hospital bed by sending me regular updates when a MET Premium or LE showed up locally or on Pinside. Several times the pricing or availability just didn’t work out. Fast forward to October 12^th 2018. A day I’ll never forget. I got a text from Andy’s Dad that he had passed away from the illness he had been fighting for almost a year. I balled liked a baby. Then I cried. Then I was sad. Then I got a little angry. Angry that Andy wouldn’t be here anymore. Wouldn’t come over to play Pinball anymore. Wouldn’t be able to come see the new house and Pinball space we were building. Right at that moment I was checking my Facebook feed when my sister posted this message. “Make him proud and buy a pinball.” No way. Listen, I’m building a new house. Putting all my funds into that right now. Heck, I don’t even have space to set even one more up.

But …

I was just emotional enough that I did just that – I ordered another Pinball

I texted my distributor to see
availability. He said yes. I said “how much”. He gave me the
price and I said “how do you want to get paid” – all done, one
day. New Metallica Monsters Premium bought. You can read more about
that in the Andy memorial article if you want, but that about sums up
the “why”.

So what about MET? In this post I’ll
try to answer a few questions about unboxing, modding, playing and
living with one of the bestselling modern Stern’s of all time.

That’s whiskey, not Pinball!

Let’s start with the pickup process. Bit of a story there too. After placing my order with my distributor. I didn’t hear anything for almost 2 weeks. I sent a gentle reminder email and got a response immediately “It’s shipping this week!” Super, I thought, just a few more days and I should get a call from him letting me know shipper, pro #, etc. No word all week up until at least Thursday. No call. No email. Nothing. Not a big deal as I really didn’t expect delivery that week anyway. Friday afternoon, I’m walking out of my office to head home for the weekend and my phone rings. Local number but I don’t recognize it. Usually I ignore because they are spam/robo calls, but on this occasion I answered it. Turns out it was a local freight company. “We’ve got a piece of freight for you on a pallet.” “Is it a Pinball game?” I asked?

Yup! I asked where they were located and after a few minutes of back and forth I discovered they were 5 minutes from my office and as a bonus – I drove the pickup to work that day. Double bonus … they were open until 6:30. I told the guy I was on my way.

I arrived and finally found the correct door to enter. Climbed a set of stairs to get to the dispatch office, opened the door and was met with a blast of hot air. I found a small cheaply paneled room with space heater cooking on high. I peeked around the corner and found a young man all smiles and eager to help. I told him who I was, he asked for my license and took a photo copy of it. Returned my license and had me sign a document. He then asked me to follow him down to the dock area.

On the way down he proceeded to explain to me that the Pinball was in the very last trailer and he couldn’t remember what part. We walked the length of the docks to the last trailer where he quickly disappeared into it. He re-appeared a few seconds later and said “It’s at the nose” – “don’t worry though, it won’t take but a few minutes to unload this thing.”

I watched as he unloaded about 40 total feet of a 53 foot trailer. Now I’ve watched lots of guys handle a forklift but seriously – this guy had skills. Still took him about 15 minutes because the entire freight load was all “Kilz” paint in various package forms. From gallons to boxes to 5 gallons and up – they had every type of package that Kilz could come in. And it was heavy. So it took time. Cause sometimes the pallet wouldn’t let go of the forks without some serious persuasion due to the weight. He finally says “I can get to it now” and a couple seconds later he appears with a box lying flat that looks about the size of 2 large pieces of luggage. He says “Want to inspect it first?” I said “No need – that’s not it!”. He said “It’s not?” After I convinced him it was not a Pinball machine, we both went back into the trailer to closely see that very last big box touching the nose of the trailer. That wasn’t it either. It was a whiskey display – ugh, this was gonna a take a while.

We walked all the way back to the first
dock (the only other trailer with freight in it) and sure enough,
about halfway down was the Stern logo peering back at me. I pointed
to it and said – that one. He started the emptying procedure all
over again and finally, after 35 or 40 minutes I had the MET Premium
leaning against the back of my truck. With another set of helping
hands from him, we tipped it in and away I went. Homeward bound with
one of Andy’s (and soon to be mine) favorite pins!

Truck this side only

I got home and my usual helper (Chris) was getting some well-deserved sleep after a long overnight shift. The weather looked threatening. At least it looked threatening if you have a $7,000 Pinball machine made of wood and electronics sitting exposed to it. What to do? You know the answer. Cut the pallet off the bottom, pull it to the edge of the tailgate, let gravity assist and slowly lower it to the ground. Now tip it upright, grab your freight 2 wheeler and drag it to the front door! Now pull it up those steps – Nope! This is where I was stalled. I weigh 165 soaking wet and am plenty strong enough for most Pinball work but manhandling a NIB up stairs without an Escalara isn’t in the cards. I left it at the bottom of the steps.

Chris woke up an hour later and within a minute we had it in the house safe and sound. We took a dinner break and then when we returned it was back to the MET unboxing. I cut the left and right corners down full length of the “Truck this side only” and then peeled it down. We pulled the legs out of the main container, loosened and removed the pre-installed leg bolts,then attached the front legs

Setup from here goes pretty quick. I always add some sticky felt to the leg leveler bottoms because we have our pins on hardwood floors. With that done to the front legs, it’s a matter of tipping the machine down so the front legs are now touching the ground.

Now lift the back of the machine (helper needed) and I put my DIY 4×4 post under it for support. Add the back legs and you’re ready to cut the band that holds the head for shipping. After cutting the band, lift the head, be careful not to pinch any wires going into the backbox. Have your head bolts ready and as soon as the head is vertical, insert the head bolts and finger tighten until you can finish with a 5/8^th wrench. Boom – the game is up.

For Metallica, there are just a couple more things to do. Pull the power cord out of the recessed hole in the back of the machine. Mine was wrapped around the transformer so make sure you open the coin door and have your helper pull the cord while you watch and guide if needed. Next I pulled the glass and removed the strap tie and foam block around Sparky. Pull off all the other “Adult language” warning papers, assembly papers, etc. and add 4 balls and you are ready to play!

Take a picture of the serial number of
your game. I’m surprised at how many folks don’t keep a record of
this. Take that picture and the next time you are on Pinside,
navigate to your collection page and add that number to the notes.
Not only do you have an image of it but you have a backed up record
of it that you can access anywhere in the world. I know that pins are
rarely stolen but if ever that happens or there is an insurance claim
– you’re prepared.

Screw in the shooter lane – bet that hurts

So we plugged it in. Hit the rocker for power and just like it was supposed to do – it came on. Awesome job Stern. It works. Even after shipping. Not an easy accomplishment. I pushed start. Nothing happened. I have done this dozens of times, still gets me every time. So into the menus I went to set the game on free play. Now I hit start – again. We played maybe 4 balls or so and on the last ball Chris was playing, the launch seemed a little “off”. He drained. I stepped up and pulled the plunger and the ball moved to the forked part of the launch guide and stopped dead. Powered off the game and grabbed the flashlight. A screw had neatly wedged itself into the shooter lane forked area

It literally took 10 minutes to get the very tightly wedged screw out of there using my magnetic rod and gentle prodding. With the screw removed it was time to find out where it came from. It took just 5 seconds to find that.

Right above that area is a clear plastic placed to prevent captive balls during gameplay. There are 2 screws that insert into hex posts from underneath. One had fallen out, the other was on the way. Two drops of blue Loctite and we were back in business. Before we slid the playfield glass back on, I noticed that one of the retaining bolts for the rising cross mech was protruding from the playfield. It simply looks like it was not tightened down enough at the factory. Not sure it’s a problem as the ball doesn’t seem to be able to impact it because it’s so close to the edge of the ball guide. To date, I’ve just left it as is.

Mod it like you mean it

We played a few more entire games and as much fun as the game play is on MET, I was missing the subwoofer and shaker motor. It was time to mod. As you’ve already read, I had some time before this machine arrived. So I spent some money. Too much. On too many mods. The following is the list of mods we installed over the next 5 hours in total:

• Green slingshot
  and inlane protectors
• Polk audio 10”
  subwoofer
• Pinnovators
  subwoofer out kit (Sam)
• Snake tongue
  decal
• Pinball side
  mirrors
• Pinstadium
  lighting kit
• Shaker motor
  (rev B)
• Shooter eject
  protector
• Shooter lane
  mylar
• Magnet mylar
  circle
• Mantis scoop
  protector
• 3 crosses at
  rollover lanes
• Lighted
  cemetery arch
• Sparky
  protector plastic

Guess what? I’m not even close to done! I’ve still got the following to add:

• Custom Dirty Donnie Sparky (on the way)
• Sparky helmet EL wires (here)
• Lighted hammer LED mod (here)
• Snake fangs kit (on the way)
• Sculpted snake kit (here)
• Cliffy switch slot protectors (on the way)

And … on my wish list

• Color DMD
• Custom purple armor

Let’s review how each of these went and provide tips and tricks for install where we can

Slingshot/Inlane protectors –easy install. Clip the white wire ties that hold the wires on each spotlight above the slings. Remove the spotlight from the post.Remove the hex post, then remove the remaining nuts from the other 2 corners of each sling. Remove and discard (put in coinbox if you wish) the metal washers that Stern provide for protection. These can’t stay as the added height of the fluorescent protectors won’tallow the nut to catch enough of the threaded post. Beside the protectors are doing the job the washers were before. When you assemble, make certain the drop zone of the right habitrail is pushed away from the newly added protector or it will hang up (ask me how I know)

Subwoofer – easy install. Use the Pinnovators web page install instructions. Run an extension cable to your sub. Make sure you have a splitter so you can use the “line in” section. Plug in sub, good to go

Snake tongue decal – clean any oil off snake mech base where tongue decal will be placed. I use some alcohol. Thoroughly dry the area with small piece of paper towel.Remove paper backing from decal, then use a small flat blade screwdriver to stick just the very tip of the decal to it. This will allow you to place the decal perfectly. Once positioned push down to ensure adhesion. 60 second install.

Side mirrors/Pin Stadium – this was a package deal install. I noticed my PF was super tight to begin with- barely enough room for the mirrors on each side. There was NO WAY I could fit the Pin Stadium magnets ON TOP of the side mirrors so … I placed the magnets for the Pin Stadium on first, then installed the mirror blades directly below the magnets – butted up tight to them. Worked like a charm! Even so, the magnets from the Pin Stadium are so tight they have actually shaved some wood from the edge of the Pf as I have raised and lowered it. No biggie as you can’t see it and a testament to the adhesive properties of the Pin Stadium magnets because they have not budged!

Shaker motor – a pretty typical install. All the wiring you need is in the cabinet already. The instructions are typically confusing and they don’t disappoint here. I’ve put in dozens of them so I wish I would just stop reading them. Again they confused me and added 5 minutes to a 15 minute install. Add the circuit board (side of cab is already drilled – yay!), mount the shaker (T-nuts already in place – yay!) Plug in 2 sets of wires, add the cover (in my experience the hardest part) and you’re ready to use it.

Shooter eject protector – Not an easy install. If I had it to do over again, I would simply drop a piece of custom cut mylar in there. Here goes. Remove the two nuts holding the front of the apron down midway down the outside drain lanes. Remove the 2 screws holding the back of the apron in place where the playfield brackets intersect and lock into the lock down bar receiver. Unplug the J connector that sends power to the apron lighting. Remove apron. Remove the top 2 screws from the eject mech (left and right side). Now the tricky part. Bend, twist, cajole, nudge, tweak and wish this protector into place. You will need to do 3 things at once. Get it under the eject lip, under the entire eject mech with mounting holes aligned and pop it over the wire guide – good luck without slicing your hands off. Seriously be careful. It would be MUCH easier to remove the entire eject mech but I was too lazy. Total install 30 minutes

Shooter lane mylar – cut it to fit (rectangle) fit it tight to the left side of the shooter lane. Then use a right angle pick (the outside elbow or bend) to press it down from left to right. Don’t just try to shove it in there or it WILL stick but it will leave air gaps wherever it crosses a sharp angle. Just slowly push it down left to right. When you get to the right side you’ll want enough material left to climb all the way up the black part to protect as balls fly out of the eject mech. This right angle crease is important to “fold into” using your right angle pick (use the outside elbow of that pick as it makes a nice crease in the mylar but does not tear it) 5 minute install

Magnet mylar – I always keep several sheets of mylar around. I traced the inside of a roll of my electrical tape and cut that circle out using my tool/scissors. Wax the playfield first and if you need to remove this later, it will come off with no damage. Remove backing and add over magnet area. I did NOT cut out the magnet. I left it covered with the mylar and it works just fine. 2 minute job including cutting the circle out.

Mantis scoop protector – Remove all the screws that mount the scoop toe the playfield. Slide in the mantis protect under the loosed mech. NOW – be careful as you slide and push this into position in the scoop hole. It’s easy to catch a piece of errant clear coat and chip the clear as you push the mantis UP into the scoop hole. I know because I’ve done it on MMR before. Take your time on this one. Once it’s placed, you will use ONE of the original scoop mech mounting holes to hold the protector and you will need to drill a second. I use a small handheld drill and a 1/16^th bit. NO need to go deep. Place the scoop back as it was, add your new hex head screw and this one is in the books. Took about 20 minute’s total. Not hard at all. Worth the effort. No extraordinary rejects from the scoop at all during gameplay. Highly recommended.

3 crosses – Super easy install BUT the one on the left hits a clear protective plastic (one of the arms on the cross) so I had to fiddle with it to keep the crosses straight and aligned with each other. I actually pulled the left cross off the aluminum mount and re-positioned it higher. The adhesive is very sticky so it allowed for the re-positioning. Problem solved. Total install should be 2 minutes. Actual install was 15 minutes +

Lighted cemetery arch – Not complex at all. Instructions should be a little clearer. But you can figure it out. Follow the Mezelmods instructions on line. I’m still wondering how to secure the wiring even though it doesn’t get in the way of anything – just kind of sits there. Also don’t think that the mod is as “dramatic” as I would have thought it to be.Still looks good as a sculpted piece though.

Sparky protector – I ordered the green fluorescent and once installed did not like it at all. I’ve since reordered the thinner clear version and will install that instead. The green was too much up around Sparky and this protector was very thick. Looked fantastic in design though with engraved spider webbing.

You cussing at me??

So what do I think about Metallica game play? Wow. I’m impressed. It’s a great combination of hard shots with easier repeatable ones. It’s easy to get to multiball. It’s a challenge to drive the ball up that fuel lane. It’s easy to hit Sparky. It’s hard to hit that left ramp. It’s easy to backhand the graveyard. It’s hard to hit it from the right flipper and not go STDM.

I never listened to Metallica growing up. I AM a huge music fan. At one time I had over 7,000 records in my collection. Yes, metal was part of it. Just no Metallica. To be honest, it’s not bad. In fact for a Pinball game it’s absolutely perfect. I wouldn’t change a thing. If you don’t think you would like it because you already know you “hate Metallica” (or as Sparky puts it “Tallica Sux”) then give it a play first. There are simple menu settings that you can use to turn the volume of the music down to your liking if you so choose. I ended up turning my music UP not down. To turn it UP, go into the game adjustment menu and select #134 (music attenuation) and change it to say -40. Yup, you read that right, MINUS 40. The higher the negative number the louder the songs are! Metallica music is OK by me.

What can I say about the artwork – it’s stunning. Dirty Donny is no doubt the man when it comes to this hand drawn art style. It captures a metal band perfectly and from what I’ve heard from true MET fans it captures this band to a “T”. Great job Donny Gillies! We met him at Texas Pinball Festival last March and he’s just a fun guy too. I know that Miss Tami will love her custom painted Sparky from Donny when it arrives.

The sound … the glorious sound package in this pin. It is nearly perfect in every way. The only improvement might be if the entire hardware system was replaced to perform at the level that Total Nuclear Annihilation or Alice Coopers Nightmare Castle are at. This sound package is so good it deserves better hardware – better fidelity. With that said, let’s review some of the highlights. Like the double bass drums tied to the spinners – genius and sounds amazing through the sub. Like the adult language callouts. I’m not a fan of cussing but I am good at it. I also recognize that this IS probably an appropriate place for it. I play the game with the volume around 40 and simply love the feeling of being at a concert or better yet, an event like no other. Adrenaline, excitement, music, skill, lights, sounds and vibes from the shaker – Pinball at its best!

This band is hot!

I live on 30 acres and will typically burn all the paper I can in my burning barrel. Saves trash space. Saves me hauling it ¼ mile out to the road each week. So, after setting up Metallica, it made sense to drag the box out to the burning barrel and get rid of it. I pulled one of the leg boxes out of it (nice long square chimney shape if you know what I mean) and I lit that at the bottom and tossed it back inside the bigger box. I can’t resist a great image so as the box began to burn, I snapped a few. The last one is amazing and as I clicked the image using my iPhone, I was nearly burned in the process (I was many feet away but wow, was that hot!). A fitting end to the box that held the pinball machine that represents a band known for their over the top performances and music – rock on